Reputation, as Warren Buffet once said, takes 20 years to build and five minutes to lose—and few businesses know this better than fast-food chains. In 2019, leading brands like McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell spent an incredible $5 billion on promotion and advertising.
What Buffet’s aphorism does not mention, though, is that the rules around reputations work a bit differently for major corporations. While an individual career might be derailed in five minutes by a scandal or controversy, a “ruined” reputation is, for a billion-dollar company like McDonald’s or Starbucks, survivable.
For Pete’s sake, isn’t the McDonald’s of 2022—the one that recently reported $23 billion in annual revenue—the same McDonald’s that all but admitted in 2012 that it was selling its customers “pink slime” burgers? Far from the be-all and end-all it might seem to be, reputation is, for the biggest fast-food brands, just another annual expense.
So here’s a look at nine fast-food chains with damaged, sullied, or lost reputations. Has it actually affected the business?
For more fast-food news, check out 8 Worst Fast-Food Burgers to Stay Away From Right Now.
Starbucks has been getting flack recently for increasing prices on popular menu items. The price hikes have been seen as evidence of “corporate greed,” following Starbucks’ announcement of profit growth of 31% in the most recent quarter.
Price gouging aside, the coffee chain has also…
