Ethical Communication for Business: A Case Study of Hungry Jack's in Australia

This paper evaluates the ethical communication practices of Hungry Jack's, a leading fast food chain in Australia. It explores the company's background, economic performance, market share, and public perception. The paper also sheds light on the company's unique communication process through social media implementation.

Running head: ETHICAL COMMUNICATION FOR BUSINESS
ETHICAL COMMUNICATION FOR BUSINESS
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Abstract
Steady financial returns along with quality services have once been considered as
essential factors of a successful business. However, in recent times, the most effective and
reliable organizations have concentrated on societal factors and not solely on business
competencies. The most productive businesses catering any industry primarily works on
customer demands and requirements and further positions them ahead of revenue generations.
Thus, these enterprises are perceived as ethically communicative organizations and further
facilitate in achieving greater success. Such businesses intends to benefit not solely to the
employers but to the consumers as well. These socially accountable business practices are
regarded as market advantage. The business practice of one such organization must be taken into
consideration. Hungry Jack’s, located in Australia, being one of the leading fast food restaurants
have been sustainably providing satisfaction to its consumer base. The company is immensely
committed to develop and aid sustainable business values and practices. It is further in the
process of utilizing a range of operational enhancements across the web of outlets with the
purpose of reducing the total energy consumption.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................2
Company Background and Operations........................................................................................2
Industry Overview.......................................................................................................................3
Hungry Jack’s Organizational Performance (Economic, Market Share and Reputation)...........4
Hungry Jack’s Unique Communication Process.........................................................................5
Public Perception on Hungry Jack’s............................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
Reference.........................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
Hungry Jack’s, a renowned fast food organization, a franchise of the international Burger
Kings Corporation and owned by Jack Cowin has its outlets in over 300 locations across the
Australian continent. The fast food company is further known as the second largest franchiser of
the Burger King. The primary products sold by the company are sandwiches and burgers, which
called ‘Whooper’ and the “Tendercrisp” (Hungryjacks.com.au 2018). Hungry Jack’s has been
known for its commitment and dedication of nurturing sustainable business operations. The
restaurant claims to serve the best quality and innovative food items further enhancing their
customer base. The report will briefly evaluate the overview of the fast food industry by further
highlighting Hungry Jack’s background and its operations (Wellard et al. 2015). The paper will
further explore the economic performance along with its market share and reputation in the fast
food industry. In addition to this, it will focus on the way Hungry Jack’s maintain its
communication processes through several communication channels of advertising and digital
communication. Lastly, the paper will provide an insight of the way the company is perceived by
the public.
Discussion
Company Background and Operations
Hungry Jack’s has been operating in Australia since early phase of 1970 with its first
outlet opened in a suburb of Perth. It has been noted that the initial achievements of the company
has led to a rapid development. The company has its ownership as well as operations of Burger
King or Hungry Jack’s fast food chains in Australia (Food and Council 2014). The company
being known as the chief franchise for Australia, Hungry Jack’s has been accountable for

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licensing recent proponents and further establishing its own flagships and further maintaining
standard supervision of the franchised locations within the Australian region. It has been noted
that the name ‘Hungry Jack’s’ was initially a variant of ‘Hungry Jack’ that is a brand of Pillsbury
which had its registration for a pancake mix (Wellard et al. 2015). However, the company was
later selected by an Australian franchisee Jack Cowin when he intended to seek the unavailability
of the Burger King brand in the country.
Industry Overview
Hungry Jack’s being the leading fast food restaurant chain is regarded as one of the
dominant operators of the Australian fast food industry. The fast food industry has been
reportedly reached over 110 billion in 2016, with a compound annual growth of 3% that further
indicates a general developed market (Allegretto et al. 2013). The fast food industry has a
revenue generation of over $550 billion that is considered higher than the financial worth of the
majority of the nations (Lacy and Rutqvist 2016). The revenue rate in Australia has been
recorded of $200 million in 2016 that is considered an elevated rate since the revenue generation
of the past two decades (Moodie et al. 2013). The industry is anticipated to acquire an annual
growth of over 2% for the following years.
In recent times, the company has been acclimatizing to the increasing demand of food,
which must be meeting health and quality standards. The consumer health awareness has altered
the fast food industry over the past few years. The Australian fast food industry currently has
experienced dynamic expansion because of the increased number of preferences of people
towards restaurants and fast food chains . Fast food chains along with independent outlet were
offering around 1.7 billion of takeaways and meals in the corporate foodservice sector (Wellard

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et al. 2015). The Australian fast food industry has witnessed a dynamic annual average GDP
growth rate of almost 3% during the period of 2012-15 (De Vogli, Kouvonen and Gimeno 2014).
However, it must be noted that the industry currently has been encountering a decline since the
last two years and noted a decreased development rate of 0.8% in 2016. The logistics of food
service and business within the sector have been recognized as significant factors. The whole fast
food industry is largely been dominated by Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) that is held
accountable for over 70% of the revenue generation of the whole fast food industry. The key
players of the fast food industry are Hungry Jack’s, Domino’s Pizza, Donut King, Eagle Boys
whereby Hungry Jack’s possesses the most varied profile (Allegretto et al. 2013). It must be
noted that the majority section of these large organizations have the beneficial factor of
economies of scale, that is exhibited in the industry’s enduring effort to offer reasonable priced
value food items to their consumers.
Hungry Jack’s Organizational Performance (Economic, Market Share and
Reputation)
According to several reports, Australians spend over $1.2 billion in a year at fast food
restaurants. Hungry Jack’s in Australia owns over 400 outlets in Australia with an employee base
of more than 15,000 people (Hungryjacks.com.au 2018). The company has recently experienced
a profit of around $25 million, noting a 29% decline on its previous year’s revenue generation
(Hungryjacks.com.au 2018). Australians spend about $25 billion annually on takeaway food as
reported by investment bank UBS in December. Furthermore, Domino’s its competitor has
recently revealed a 27.8% increase in sales to $1.15 billion, whereas the biggest rivalry Mc
Donald’s exposed the gross sales of $5 billion (Lacy and Rutqvist 2016). As per the revelations
of Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the competitive and fast food chains along

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with some KFC stores in Australia made a profit of around $20 million from $1 billion in profit
in 2014 (Allegretto et al. 2013).
However, Hungry Jack’s has been known to dominate the fast food market, but elevated
diversification is likely to restrain their revenue generation (De Vogli, Kouvonen and Gimeno
2014). Along with the fast food company has been concentrating on waste reduction in order to
minimise costs while larger organizations contract directly with the suppliers to circumvent the
wholesale growth.
The fast food company has claimed to have experienced several backlashes in order to
establish on the value and quality it is recognised for. The brand introduced its new supreme
Grill masters range thereby marking the establishment of a menu refurbishment that will further
aim to strengthen the reputation of the company for its ‘Better beef’ (Hungryjacks.com.au 2018).
Hungry Jack’s is further recognized for its brand image that ascertains 1000% pure Aussie beef
along with no added HGPs in the preparation of its burgers. The company further revealed its
recent enduring strategies in order to reassesses its consumer demands and expectations and
further adapt to the altering preferences of its consumer base. The fast food company in order to
maintain its brand image and tagline “The burgers are better at Hunger Jack’s”, has assured its
dedication and commitment of keeping their items ‘better’ at everything that is present on their
menu, along with its store experience and the appearance and feel of its outlets. Recent reports
and articles reveal that the reviews and feedbacks of customers have been enchanting and
facilitating to enhance their brand value and loyalty (Lacy and Rutqvist 2016). The company has
been continuing to reinvent itself and further attempt to reflect better customer demands and
enhanced transparency.

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Hungry Jack’s Unique Communication Process
The company being recognized as an iconic brand committed in delivering valued and
quality products since it has established its business in Australia. Being a brand of proving
consistent high standard customer service, the team has resolute to introduce improved
approaches to reach their buyers and thus started to develop an improved social media strategy
that incorporated social networking sites namely Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest
(Hungryjacks.com.au 2018). Hungry Jack’s has been employing ‘Radian6’ in order to listen and
further track their efforts and further raise their level of engagement with the customers and
provide them with productive insights into their endorsement and promotional activities (Wellard
et al. 2015). The company has further introduced their major brand promotion by bring in the
tagline “Keeping it Real”. The campaign was accounted for parodying the ‘foodie’ culture that
has been the trend of recent times thereby dominating the major part of Australia (Lacy and
Rutqvist 2016). The amount of expenditure spent by the company has been minimal to track, as
their consumers owned a common base across the numerous social media networks.
Furthermore, sourcing services from Fiverr.com, the company has managed to achieve its social
media followers to employ one of the TVC stars, that is Axel, the dog with the owner who has
been rewarded $5 for the image of Axel (De Vogli, Kouvonen and Gimeno 2014). The
company’s experiment of $5 has resulted a rise in the level of social media engagement of the
company that is over 250,000 customers, producing considerably increased conversations among
the users of Facebook on the initial book of the $5 Experiment as well as attracting millions of
recent Facebook followers along with YouTube video views (Allegretto et al. 2013). The social
media endorsements have been vital to the fast food company’s brand image, further permitting
the company to receive instant customer reviews and feedbacks. Through the massive social

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media implementation, the company has managed to witness a growth of over 50% since 2016
(Freeman et al. 2014).
Public Perception on Hungry Jack’s
Hungry Jack’s though being the leading fast food chain in Australia is being incompetent
to maintain a renowned reputation lately. The company must take its accountability to keep
effective supervision of its employee base. Hungry Jack’s has posed no compulsion to seek to
have the debtor organization that would consider the employee responsibility taking into account
the commencing procedures. The company has been Australian’s favourite because of its high
quality food. The fast food outlet has recently been in the light of media regrading work permit
of foreign workers. The ministry of immigration and border protection recently has made an
announcement of terminating the employment agreement of fast food industry whereby, foreign
labourers are prohibited to work in their outlets (Lacy and Rutqvist 2016). Since the contract was
announced, only 400 foreign labourers have been granted visas for employment in the Australian
fast food industry (Doherty 2018). The Australian employees specifically the youth population of
Australia have been provided with utmost priority and has been guaranteed of productive career
pathways to the young Australians. As the result, Hungry Jack’s has intensively focused on
employing young Australians recruits further giving them greater opportunities and career
growth. Thus, the company recently has gathered a lot of attention from the country’s people
further enhancing its brand image as well as employee retention.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that Hungry Jack’s has been
dominating the Australian fast food industry for decades and thus performing effectively to

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maintain its brand image to retain its customer base. The paper effectively evaluated the
organizational overview and background of Hungry Jack’s. Furthermore, the report explored the
characteristics of Australian fast food industry. In addition to this, the paper shed light on the
communication procedures of the company by focusing on its social media implementation. The
report has also examined the economic performances of Hungry Jack’s by evaluating its growth
of revenue generation in relation to market share and public reputation. Lastly, this paper has
concentrated to the public perceptions of the company by reviewing its recent news and articles.

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