\nI’m going out on a limb here, but I suspect that the popularity of Pret in the UK has probably had a huge influence on the entire “ready-made food” market there. While most chain restaurants in the US strive to be the next McDonalds, most chain markets, delis, newsagents, drug stores, supermarket, everybody<\/em> in the UK strives to be the next Pret – or at least keep you from going to Pret. Thats how it seemed to me, anyway.\n<\/p>\n \nI like Pret, and I appreciate what I assume they’ve done for the UK food landscape. I like them so much that I decided to spend some of my free time just browsing their corporate home page. While taking in various facts about the company I was amused to see this clever example of “marketing a negative”:\n<\/p>\n \n \nThey’ve used the predictability of a “franchising” link on fast-food websites as a means of drawing attention to the fact that they don’t. The “Franchising” link rates top level placement at most fast-food corporate sites because they’re hoping business people will notice the link and decide to open a new location:\n<\/p>\n \n \nSo what use is the “Franchising” link on the Pret page? It’s not there for the hapless business person who’s curious about opening a franchise. It’s there to demonstrate for all who view it that Pret is too cool for franchising<\/em>. You’d like to replicate us, but it just can’t be done<\/em>. We’re above the fray when it comes to all of your typical fast-food expectations, especially<\/em> when it comes to franchising:\n<\/p>\n “Franchising – sorry we don’t. Please don’t call us and ask for a franchise because we don’t; we really don’t. We don’t franchise. The fact is, we don’t like to franchise, so we don’t.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \nGiving top-billing to these sassy statements next to feel-good headings like “natural food,” “good jobs,” and “sustainability” gives viewers the impression that Pret is a real exception. Finally, a fast-food chain that’s bucking the trend in all the important ways. They’re so warm and fuzzy, surely it’s all right for me to eat here, even several times a week! It’s good for the environment, I think. And will solve world hunger and eventually end all war. Pret for all!\n<\/p>\n \nIn fact, Pret’s and McDonald’s corporate pages couldn’t be more different. Pret is the anti-Ronald and McDonalds is the anti-Pret. Which is why it’s so amusing that McDonalds owns 1\/3 of Pret<\/a>! (Thanks to Marko Karppinen<\/a> for pointing this out to me). Clearly Pret recognizes the friction this may cause in their customers’ thinking. Doesn’t being part-owned by the anti-Pret cast doubt on their rosy public image? Pret responds accordingly:\n<\/p>\n “McDonald’s do not have any direct influence over what we sell or how we sell it; nor would they want to. They have invested in Pret because they like what we do.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \nWhy would<\/em> a multi-national corporation want to have influence over a business they own a full third of<\/em>?\n<\/p>\n \nPret really knows how to market a negative.\n<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the things I really enjoy about the UK is the widespread availability of “instant takeaway food.” It’s very easy to find something in a plastic wrapper that is of relatively good quality. By no means should the quality of plastic-wrapped foods be the final measure of a culture, but it sure is nice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redsweater.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redsweater.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redsweater.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redsweater.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redsweater.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redsweater.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redsweater.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redsweater.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redsweater.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"http:\/\/www.red-sweater.com\/blog\/images\/PretFranchising-20070530-143153.png\"\/)
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