McDonald's, Burger King: Marketing Joe to the Average Joe (BKC, MCD, SBUX)

Abbi Adest submits: Are you tired of overpriced coffee that comes in unpronouncable sizes, infinite varieties and seems to be on sale at every street corner thanks to that ubiquitous green-logoed chain?

If so, McDonald's (MCD), Burger King (BKC) and Dunkin' Donuts have your number. The three chains are turning up the heat on their coffee marketing campaign directed at "the average Joe" who just wants a decent cup of coffee without having to put off retirement indefinitely. In other words, the blue collar/lower middle class demographic that is turned off by Starbucks' (SBUX) price range and image. The New York Times reports on this "class war in a coffee cup":

Burger King customers buying the new BK Joe coffee "don't want it to be complicated, like a chai half-decaf whatever," said Denny Marie Post, the senior vice president and "chief concept officer" for Burger King, a unit of Texas Pacific. "Our customer doesn't have that kind of money, frankly, and doesn't have that kind of profile. They just want it to be straightforward. This is not frou-frou coffee."

They may not want the snob appeal of Starbucks, but the challengers certainly want a bigger slice of the booming $8.4 billion retail coffee market. And that is just the amount sold in coffee shops. Starbucks accounted for $6.1 billion of the total in 2005, up from $3.7 billion in 2003.

In their pursuit of construction workers on their coffee breaks, these fast-food franchises are pushing as many non-Starbucks qualities as possible: low prices, simplified choice and even their lack of plush in-store seating:

Mr. Gilbert acknowledged the superior look of the Starbucks stores, many complete with plush couches, blond-wood cafe tables and soothing jazz piped through the speakers. But that is not what the "hard-working" Dunkin' customer wants, he said: "Our customers have stuff they got to do, and most of what they want to do is not taking place in our stores."

Interesting explanation for purposely not making your store as inviting as your competitor's. It's not often that you hear of retail chains actively wanting their customers to leave as quickly as possible. But who knows -- whackier marketing ideas have worked in the past.

The fast food chains may just find the Starbucks backlash strikes a chord in their demographic, and lights a spark under their drink revenues.