BK, comparison, and the real problem at hand

AdAge's article What Crispin's Lauded BK Work Doesn't Do: Gain Ground On McD's reflects on the last 5 years of work by Crispin Porter & Bogusky and Burger King, noting that while creative, ground-breaking and buzz-building, it hasn't made a dent in the gap between BK and top dog McDonalds.

I'm compelled to immediately think two things:

1>> Again it comes to light that there's a stark difference between driving advertising/awareness, and solving the real problem at hand (evidently this goes beyond just traditional advertising and reaches into sacred social media ground as well). Is BK's problem that they aren't branded/social media'd/buzz-generatingly rad enough??? Or: is it that they essentially serve chunks of meat in various manufactured forms? Not to say that with any definite expertise, because I'm certainly no burgerologist or anything (it's prob been approx 5 years since I've even been to a BK, and a McD's maybe twice or so in the same period) so it's reasonable/likely that it's some other third thing. But I think it's a question worth asking and I think this is becoming increasingly more obvious.

2>> Does comparing BK to McD's measure how well BK is performing to the people that matter (read: consumers)??? Or: does it measure something that only matters to executives and people reading ad/industry magazines?

These two probably contradict each other on some level, but my end thought is this: A successful brand always lives and breathes some raison d'etre, and it's never 'money' (or any other metrics for that matter). It's almost always 'other people.'