McDonald's effort to trademark "McBrunch" has the fast food world buzzing this week, trying to figure out what the restaurant leader has in store, but the burger leader continues to say move along, there's nothing to see here.
On Wednesday,
BurgerBusiness.com was one of first to report about McDonald's effort to trademark the term in July, noting that the fast food giant may be trying something new after seeing a 2.8 percent slippage in U.S. sales for August. A McDonald's spokesman said the trademark filing was routine for the company.
"We routinely file intent to use trademark applications as a regular course of business," the spokesman told BurgerBusiness.com. "We can't share details at this time as to how the trademarks may or may not be used."
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BurgerBusiness.com noted McDonald's first applied for the "McBrunch" trademark in 2001 but abandoned that application.
Scott Hume, editor of BurgerBusiness.com, told
USA Today that it makes little sense for McDonald's to go through the expense to apply to protect a term twice now and not have some sort of future for it.
"There's no reason to file for it if you don't plan to use it," Hume told the newspaper. "Their declining sales show they have to do something."
Not so, McDonald's spokesman Lisa McComb told
CNBC in an email this week, trying to put the brakes on the McBrunch speculation.
"To be truthful, it's been puzzling to see coverage of this because there is truly no news here," McComb wrote to CNBC. "I understand the interest, because I, as a consumer, would love to get my beloved Egg White Delight or other breakfast items later, but we are not testing a McBrunch concept. (It's) entirely premature to speculate."
Restaurant analyst Steve West told CNBC that beyond the McBrunch trademark, McDonald's has a serious logistical problem actually pulling off brunches because it uses the same grill for breakfast and lunch items.
"For McDonald's, the big issue is they have such heavy traffic at lunch and dinner that there's no room for breakfast items as well," West told CNBC. "That's always been the biggest hindrance for most of these companies – just the added complexity."
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