Also, who wants to be known as a fast-food regular? If an express lineexisted for such customers, would they use it, especially since societytends to turn up its nose at extreme fast-food usage?

Concern about image helps explain why Bill Krantz, the founder of Bill &Phil Moving & Storage, has cut back on his fast-food restaurant visits.Krantz, the public face of Bill & Phil, believes it is important for anycustomer he meets to find him ``not looking like a slob''. He still visitsfast food joints often enough to qualify as a heavy user, but just as oftenthese days he gets his cheeseburgers, pizza and steak sandwiches fromsit-down restaurants. ``In business, your appearance means a lot,'' he says.

Sheridan doubts his partner's change of habit is all about business.``Bill's kind of like an image guy,'' Sheridan says. ``He has money, helives in the city and he doesn't want to be known as a fast food eater.''To hear it from the industry, the heavy user's absence in fast-foodadvertising doesn't mean he is unappreciated. ``They are the people we justwant to hug,'' says Nadine Brewer, senior director of consumer insight forTricon International Inc's KFC. Nor does it indicate a lack of competitionfor the heavy user's business. In an age when many restaurants areintroducing low-calorie alternatives, why would Taco Bell dip its popularGordita, a stuffed pita concoction, into a deep fryer to create ahigher-calorie and higher-fat version, the Chalupa?

Advertisements for the Chalupa never say this, but its creation was ``aimedat increasing transactions with our core heavy fast-food users,'' accordingto a recent Tricon International quarterly earnings press release. InWinconsin, Burger King is testing its Great American Burger, which boasts athicker beef patty than others on its menu and is expected to appeal toheavy users.

The heavy user's penchant for quality and value is what inspires deals liketwo sandwiches for $2 (and multiples thereof) at McDonald's. And it is inpart because the heavy user likes his sandwiches made to his ownspecifications that other purveyors are following Burger Kind in buildingcustom-made sandwiches.

Holly the dominatrix
Of course, for big chains it makes some sense to aim marketing efforts atpotential customers rather than those as reliable as the heavy user. Muchof the family-themed advertising at McDonald's, for instance, is designed topersuade parents of Happy Meal customers to partake as well.

But at least one hamburger company is staking its future on a direct appealto the heavy user. After years of poor sales, Checkers Drive-In RestaurantsInc., a 450-unit hamburger chain, is ditching advertisements featuringsmiling faces biting into juicy burgers crowned with dewy vegetables, infavour of a series of cartoons aimed directly at its core customer, which itdescribes as a single male under age 30 who has a working-class job, lovesloud music, doesn't read much and hangs out with friends.

The new ad campaign, which kicked off Jan.1, features rock music, fast carsand a dominatrix named Holly who is on "an insatiable quest for Checker'sfast food and will do anything to get it," says Jeff Hicks, creator of thecampaign and president of Miami advertising firm Crispin, Porter &Bogusky.

The hope is that Holly will dazzle the heavy user. "Imagine what two guysat a construction site are talking about. I'll tell you for sure it's notPokemon or `Toy Story'," Hicks says. The ads, however, are designed toappeal to the heavy user's vanity rather than his frequent burgerconsumption - the men who court Holly are hunky, not chunky. "We're nothanging out a sign that says, `Welcome, Heavy Users,'" Hicks says.

Establishing a public relationship with its best customer might be easier ifthe industry devised a different label. As a synonym for customer, "user"often is employed when the product at hand is illegal, such as heroin. Andwho would call his customer heavy? Bill & Phil's Frantz, when told of theindustry term for loyal customers, says, "It sounds like it means `big fatpig.'"

Of this, McDonald's, perhaps the most image-savvy of the fast-foodcompanies, is well aware. "In plain English, it just translates to who isthe best customer," says Charles Ebeling, a McDonald's spokesman. Hedismisses the term as "trade vernacular" and says McDonald's no longer usesthe phrase. Euphemisms include "most often" customer and "core" customer.

Nobody tracks or knows the physical dimensions of heavy users. But as aclass, they almost certainly are lighter than most Americans would expect.Even nutritionists say fast food receives a disproportionate amount of blamefor the nation's obesity. When President Bill Clinton gained weight duringhis first term, attention focused on the single occasion he went for a jogand wound up at McDonald's - though a likelier culprit was the heavyschedule of state dinners he attends. Truth is, much of the nation'soverweight populace seldom eats fast food, and much of the heavy-usingfast-food population isn't overweight, according to Heidi Maasdam, anutritionist at the University of Chicago Hospitals.

At a time when eating and drinking establishments of every kind account for45 per cent of the US food dollar - and when fast-food joints account for 14per cent of the food dollar - a larger contributor to excess consumption maybe sit-down restaurants.

Maasdam paid a recent visit to Spiaggia, one of Chicago's finestrestaurants, and had a four-course meal of its most popular offerings. Herconclusion: "Should have eaten at McDonald's." The Spiaggia meal deliveredabout 1,800 calories and 145 grams of fat, she estimates, compared with1,290 calories and 52 grams of fat from a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, largeorder of fries and large Coke at McDonald's. Just as half of adult Americais over-weight, so are half of the heavy users interviewed recently at Bill& Phil. Messrs. Sheridan and Frantz want to reduce.

The labourer, Frantz, carries about 105 kilograms on a 175-centimeter frame. "Every morning I wake up and tell myself I'm going to start a diet. But bythe end of the day, when I'm hungry, it doesn't matter anymore," saysFrantz, who recently left Bill & Phil but remains a heavy user. At KFC, forinstance, "you get the chicken, and then there's corn and then you wantfries and then you're like, `Man, those little side portions won't fill meup.' It gets out of control."

-- The Asian Wall Street Journal