The Value Wars: What Discounted Burgers Can Teach Us About Corporate Culture
The Value Meal That Wasn’t About Food
Perhaps you have seen the headlines that have announced that McDonald’s, Target, Kohl’s, and other giants are slashing prices in what Axios has aptly dubbed the “Value Wars.” To most, it looks like a marketing move - a simple attempt to win customers through discounts. But let’s pause and go deeper. Because this isn’t just about cheap fries or $5 bins. It’s about something much larger: how organizations respond to pressure, how they communicate worth, and how they define “value” in an era where trust and loyalty are fragile.
When you see McDonald’s introducing a cheaper combo meal, or Target promoting under-$5 household items, it’s not because their executives suddenly got generous. It’s because they sense a fracture. Consumers are tired. Their wallets are thinner, their patience shorter, and their expectations sharper. In this moment, leaders have two choices: they can compete on price, or they can compete on meaning. And when they choose price alone, they enter the Value Wars.
That same war is happening not only for how they provide their products and services, but it is also happening inside the companies. Only instead of price cuts, it’s workforce slashing, benefits trimming, or endless pleas for employees to “do more with less.” Employees, like customers, notice. They ask: am I valued here, or am I just a transaction?
The Mirage of Surface-Level Value
The Value Wars in retail mirror the shallow attempts many organizations make to buy loyalty, whether from consumers or employees. Companies slash prices, hand out coupons, or launch loyalty apps. In the workplace, they roll out pizza parties, generic mindfulness apps, or Friday bagels. These gestures aren’t inherently bad, but they’re surface-level. They’re sugar rushes. They don’t build trust, and they don’t address the structural issues at hand.
True value is not about cutting costs or sprinkling benefits. It’s about aligning what people need with what the organization actually delivers.
In retail, real value comes when a brand consistently respects its customers’ intelligence, understands their lives, and creates offerings that go beyond price. In organizations, value comes when leaders build environments where employees feel respected, resourced, and able to thrive. It’s the difference between a $5 burger deal and a culture where people know they won’t be discarded at the first sign of market turbulence.
The Value Wars remind us that cheap is easy, but meaningful is rare. And in a marketplace saturated with messages, people gravitate toward meaning. Whether you’re a customer or an employee, what you’re truly asking isn’t “what’s the cheapest option?” It’s “who sees me, who values me, and who deserves my loyalty?”
Why This Matters for Leaders, HR, and Culture Builders
1. Value is Emotional Before It’s Financial
Even in economics, value is a perception. A $1 coffee can feel expensive if you’re ignored while buying it, while a $5 latte can feel like a treat if the barista knows your name and gives you a smile and some eye contact. Similarly, employees will accept lower salaries at organizations that respect their voice, honor their humanity, and build cultures where they feel safe and seen. Price matters, but meaning matters more.
When companies respond to economic strain with nothing but cuts, whether in pricing or in people support, they reinforce a transactional message: you’re only as good as what you can produce today. That message erodes loyalty, and once loyalty erodes, the bottom line follows.
2. Short-Term Wins, Long-Term Losses
The Value Wars produce quick wins such as temporary sales bumps, a PR headline, or a blip of employee engagement after free donuts. Customers grow numb to discounts. Employees grow cynical about wellness perks that don’t address burnout or workload. What was meant to feel generous ends up feeling hollow.
This is why it’s important for companies to address root issues: cultural misalignment, lack of emotional intelligence in leadership, or structures that push people toward burnout.
3. Meaning Outlasts Discounts
Think of the brands that endure. Patagonia, Trader Joe’s, Apple. They don’t win loyalty through coupons. They win because they stand for something. They define value as more than money. The same is true in workplaces. Employees don’t stay for free lunches. They stay because they see purpose, fairness, and genuine care. When employees feel genuinely valued, they bring their best selves forward. Creativity expands. Productivity rises. Innovation flows.
HR in the Value Wars
Here’s where I see the parallel cutting deepest. Right now, HR professionals and managers are being asked to hold the line in their own kind of Value War. Companies are under financial strain. Leadership often leans on HR to deliver “value” through flashy wellness benefits or token recognition programs. But HR itself is burning out. They are given discounts, not depth. A software app instead of real resources. A smaller team instead of strategic support.
This is why the Value Wars matter. They teach us what happens when organizations misinterpret what people need. You can’t discount your way to loyalty, inside or outside the company walls. And HR leaders, of all people, know this best.
Scarcity, Trust, and Structural Blind Spots
Scarcity Thinking
The Value Wars are born out of scarcity thinking: the belief that the only way to compete is to cut. This mindset is pervasive in corporate America. When times get hard, companies focus on shrinking rather than reimagining. But scarcity rarely inspires creativity. It breeds fear, and fear creates environments where neither customers nor employees feel loyal.
Trust Erosion
Trust is cumulative. Every time a company chooses a discount over a relationship, or a perk over meaningful reform, it signals that short-term optics matter more than long-term well-being. Trust erodes slowly until suddenly, it collapses. Just as consumers eventually stop believing in coupons, employees stop believing in leadership that only reacts.
Structural Blind Spots
Surface-level fixes expose structural blind spots. Leaders often assume that the problem is external (consumers spending less, employees being disengaged) rather than internal (our offerings lack resonance, our culture lacks safety). By addressing symptoms instead of causes, they guarantee repeated cycles of crisis. This is why consulting around organizational wellness is so critical—because it helps leaders see the blind spots they’re too close to recognize.
Why Leaders Should Pay Attention
So, why does a $5 burger deal matter to CEOs, HR leaders, and managers? Because it shows us what happens when organizations try to win loyalty without meaning. It reveals how easy it is to confuse “cost” with “value.” And it warns us: if you lead by discount, you will be treated like a commodity.
Leaders who want to rise above the Value Wars must shift their question from “What’s the cheapest thing I can offer?” to “What’s the deepest way I can connect?” That means asking:
Are we creating real value for our employees, or just the illusion of it?
Are we aligning our practices with what people actually need, or with what looks good on a brochure?
Are we building trust that lasts beyond this economic cycle?
This is where organizational wellness consulting matters. It’s about creating systems that nurture human beings so they can bring their full capacity forward. It’s about ensuring HR isn’t fighting its own Value War with no resources. It’s about shifting from scarcity to abundance, from transaction to meaning.
Winning the Real Value War
The headlines about McDonald’s and Target may fade in a week, but the lesson remains. Whether you’re selling burgers or building a company, the real battle isn’t about price. It’s about value. And value isn’t defined by what costs less—it’s defined by what matters most. Consumers and employees are not asking for cheaper. They’re asking for better.