McDonald's fried chicken is saltier in its skin, while Jollibee Chickenjoy has just the right amount of the combination of real skin and breading, making it tastier. It originated in the Philippines and is usually cheaper than McDonald's. In the Philippines, as an American, I chose McDonald's when I wanted hamburgers and Jollibee if I wanted chicken. We plotted the locations of Jollibee vs McDonald's in Metro Manila to know exactly how their respective stores are facing.
The maps revealed quite interesting patterns. The figure illustrated the merger of the Jollibee and McDonald's branches, with percentage values indicating their relationships to the total number of branches of each brand in Metro Manila. The map also suggested that both brands use similar strategies to “deploy their units”, in this case, their branches to stay one ahead of the other. Have you ever noticed that for every Jollibee branch you see, there's probably a McDonald's store just a few feet away? That's not by chance.
The map identified how close a branch is to its competitor. Grey circles meant that a Jollibee store in that specific area was within a hundred meters of a McDonald's branch. That's good news for customers looking for options but aren't interested in exploring further afield just to satiate their burger cravings. While most stores are still within critical points, there are some outliers that are isolated but still committed to competition.
The maps showed areas where distances between competing stores were relatively large, and some stores had no competition within a two-kilometer radius. When viewed in groups, a brand seemed to dominate certain points. The areas controlled by Jollibee were represented by opaque white circles, with stores in the center and radii drawn to scale to indicate their distances to the nearest McDonald's store. On the other hand, transparent yellow circles on the map identified areas where McDonald's monopolized.
Jollibee was founded by a Filipino-Chinese and its taste is tastier than McDonald's. In fact, Jollibee dominates its competitor from the surrounding areas in the Caloocan-Malabon-Navotas-Valenzuela region (CamaNava) and in Tondo, extending south to the streets of Sampaloc. Although Jollibee stores are not clustered, McDonald's stores are less positioned and outnumbered. Earlier this year, Jollibee launched its first branch in Manhattan, New York, one of currently only 37 outlets in the U.
S. But in fact, they've been surprised to find that Jollibee's distinctive taste has a home among non-native customers too. If you're in the Philippines and want an American burger, Jollibee will do, but McDonald's would be more accurate. Tanmantiong said that he, Tan Caktiong (now president of Jollibee), his other two brothers and the rest of the team initially planned to embark on that path by targeting Filipino customers living abroad.
