But Sheridan is on a diet. He wants to feel svelte when he hits the beach on a coming vacation in Cancun, Mexico. Which will prevail: diet or cheeseburger? For McDonald's, this isn't just about a burger. In the vernacular of the fast-food industry, Sheridan is a heavy user. The heavy user accounts for one of five fast-food patrons - but about 60 per cent of all visits to fast food restaurants. By this definition, the heavy user accounted for roughly $66 billion of the $110 billion the National Restaurant Association says was spent on fast food last year in the US.

Definitions of the heavy user vary, but by any measurement, Sheridan stands out. He spends as much as $40 a day at fast-food restaurants. He sometimes visits them more than 20 times a month - a qualifying number for heavy-user status, according to a survey done by marketing firm Porter Novelli. A strict diet could cost the industry one of its best customers.

Television commercials for McDonald's, Burger King and KFC only occasionally hint at the industry's dependence on this narrow user group. Commercials often show families with children, or elderly married couples, biting into juicy burgers. In fact, the heavy user is most often a single male, and the industry privately acknowledges the weakness of its grip on him. "We used to have this great sign around here that said something like, `Marriage and kids are bad for your business," says Nadine Brewer, senior director of consumer, insight for Tricon International Inc.'s KFC unit.

`That's living'
Heavy users, says Barry Schwartz, Burger King's director of brand research and analysis, "come more often, they spend more money, and that's what makes the cash registers ring." But, he adds, "they're in our restaurants already." The company's marketing dollars more often are spent trying to convince light users that they want a burger in the first place, he says.

The founders of Bill & Phil Moving & Storage, Phil Sheridan and Bill Krantz, are quintessential heavy users: Both are 27 years old and single, and they don't know how to cook. They played football together at New Trier High School in the upscale Chicago suburb of Winnetka. After practice every day, Sheridan observed Krantz sitting outside a convenience store, a double-stuffed sub in one hand and a stuffed-pizza slice in the other. They started eating together, and a friendship developed.

Five years ago, having dropped out of college, they started Bill & Phil. Both had worked as movers. They liked the physical challenge of transporting heavy goods. Now, they like running their own company.

Although they no longer do the heavy lifting, their jobs are exhausting, demanding and appetite inducing. They work long hours and leave work famished. They often lack the time for sit-down restaurants. "The heavy user uses quick-service restaurants as an appliance," says Charles Nicolas, a spokesman for Burger King Corp., a unit of Great Britain;s Diageo PLC.

But their fast-food patronage isn't all about convenience. They love the food. It brings them comfort. It's no accident that the other workers at Bill & Phil are heavy users, too.

Fast food played a role in the hiring of their receptionist Wanda Vazquez. At John's, a hot-dog stand down the street, Krantz spied Vazquez. "I was watching to see what she would order because I really like girls who can eat - I think it tells a lot about a person," Krantz says. Vazquez ordered a gyro and fries.

As she stepped away from the counter, "they just walked up to me and asked if I wanted a job," recalls Vazquez, who is 20, trim and single. She started that week.

Hamburger hero
Dispatcher Kenny Frantz may be the heaviest user. His purchases during a recent Monday through Friday: five cheese-burgers, 20 pieces of fried chicken, two double cheeseburgers, a submarine sandwich, two sausage-stuffed pizza. Such volume may not be typical of every heavy user. But in his case, Frantz says, "movers get so hungry that by lunch, they just want to eat as much as they can at the first place they see. Plus, a lot of times they don't have wives to cook for them." At 36, Frantz is single.

Dave Thomas understands their need, says Bill & Phil's Sheridan. Thomas, the 67-year-old founder and chairman of Wendy's International Inc., is Sheridan's gastronomic hero. "No matter what, Dave Thomas makes it sound like there's nothing better than the new cheddar-mushroom-bacon cheeseburger," Sheridan says. "I love that commercial when he goes to a fancy restaurant and says, `I'd rather have a burger.' Everyone else there seems like a stupid putz."

Unlike frequent fliers and preferred shoppers, heavy users get little in the way of special treatment or freebies. At fast-food restaurants, they stand in the same lines as everyone else, indistinguishable from light users.

They're almost never invited to join a frequent-dinners club: Among national fast-food chains in the U.S., only Subway, with hardly a fried item on its menu, has a regular reward program. "The local franchisees can use those programs if they want, but it's not a big piece of our marketing effort," says Denny Lynch, spokesman for Wendy's International. He adds that the chain's most popular item on its 99-cent value menu - the Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger - probably draws more heavy users than would any coupon.

Is this poor marketing? Could sweeter treatment induce even heavier use from these customers? The issue is complex. Any overt effort to encourage heavy usage could draw the ire of nutritionists. And usage-tracking systems could turn off customers who don't want to know how often they partake.

(To be continued)
(The Asian Wall Street Journal)