If you are planning to visit Australia and you are a fan of Burger KingKnow that you won’t be able to own fast food Favorites over there. At least not by that name. In the country, the North American network is known by the curious name of hungry jacksince 1971, when the first Restaurant in Australian territory.
Hungry Jack’s restaurant in Sydney, Australia: Burger King has a different name in the country (Photo: Jeff Greenberg / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
according to this CBC RadioThis happened because the country already had a restaurant named Burger King when Franchisee Jack Cowin, which is Canadian, struck a deal with the American brand. The existing burger joint was owned by an American who moved to Australia and realized that the Burger King brand was not registered in the country.
Determined to do business in Australia, but lacking brand dominance, American Burger King gave Cowin a list of names that could be used in the country. He chose Hungry Jack – which echoes his own name.
In the early 1990s, when the chain already had about 80 restaurants in the country, the trademark registered by the first American businessman expired. The chain also tried to set up some units with the original name in Australia, but it didn’t hold up – Hungry Jack was already so famous in the country that Burger King opted to keep the local name. Today, There are over 440 restaurants in Australian territory.
The first step for anyone thinking of internationalizing a brand is to ensure that it is not registered in the country. “Since Burger King did not do the homework of evaluating target countries and ensuring trademark registration at an appropriate time, it had to make this adaptation”, commented Tatiana Siester, partner at Pinheiro Neto Advogados, referring to the matter during the post. Key IFA, organized by the Brazilian Franchising Association (ABF) on this Tuesday, the 22nd.
In Brazil, Apple has a similar problem with Gradient, which fights for the right to use the iPhone brand.
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