With sales of $8.5 billion in 2011, Wendy’s just the claimed number 2 spot, moving ahead of Burger King but was well short of McDonald’s $34.2 billion. This second place battle of the pygmies needs to find greater meaning in the market if either ever wants a crack at McDonalds.

My worry for Wendy’s is that its rise will prompt it to confuse activity with accomplishment. Yes, from a marketing perspective, Wendy’s is doing things, but its rise has been relative to Burger King’s inconsistent execution of any strategy.

Most of our battles at Stealing Share when rebranding companies is changing the internal mindset of those companies. Positive news, like Wendy’s received, provides a false sense of security. Fortune favors the bold and, if my past experience has taught me anything, it is that a third place Wendy’s would be strategically more bold than a second place Wendy’s.

Strategically, Wendy’s should set its sights on the white whale: McDonald’s. At the moment, however, it seems to be doing the same as Burger King by marketing product instead of brand. Copy in a recent Wendy’s ads goes: “No matter who you are, Wendy’s will make a Dave’s Hot and Juicy Cheeseburger fresh just for you, so its special, just like you.” Give me a moment while I my eyes stop rolling. Beyond its campy verbiage, it provides no switching trigger for the customer. Does anyone believe they would be refused service when they go to a fast food restaurant? Or that a competitor will not make hamburgers?

McDonald’s has been successful due to its message clarity, consistency and firm brand meaning of “fun.” In fact, that brand promise is represented as an experience rather then product.

Wendy’s is certainly in a good position. Number two is nothing to scoff at. But it will take focus to clear the gap with McDonalds and being able to spot the pivotal brand difference between its brand  and the Mickey-Dee one.

It’s an interesting time in the fast-food burger industry. There are more outlets than ever and the industry is growing. In addition, the foodservice research company Technomic released a report that smaller brands, such as Five Guys and Shake Shack, are eating into the big retailers’ market share.

Yet, the big three – McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King – still make up 75% of US burger sales.

So how do we interpret this? To me, this market mirrors what the beer market has been going through for years, starting with the emergence of microbrews. At that time, the big three in beers – Budweiser, Miller and Coors – reacted with panic by introducing their own kind of specialty beers, without completely entering into the microbrew space, and flooding the marketplace with marketing and advertising.

They have since adjusted by buying out many of the microbrews and, more importantly, giving more meaning to their own brands. (Well, Budweiser does. And, BTW, you’d be surprised how many microbrews are owned by Budweiser and its parent company, InBev.)

Microbrews also deluded themselves into thinking they had found a meaning in the marketplace that was previously untapped. What they found, though, was that the microbrew drinker had a completely different brand face than those who drink one of the major American lagers. They are not brand loyal, but like to try what’s new. That means, while they may prefer Boulevard or Shiner Bock, they will try another microbrew if it isn’t available at that time.

The Bud drinker, meanwhile, will leave if the establishment has no Bud.

That is the case here with fast-food burgers as well. McDonald’s is still the most powerful brand in the market and, with a few exceptions, the smaller brands have taken hold of the much smaller audience of “I’ll try it” that is not as brand loyal.

In the beer industry, most of the microbrews did not take advantage of its entry into the market, as their market share is still less than 5% in 2010. (The microbrew industry has grown a bit, but that’s because more microbrews are entering the market. The individual brands aren’t growing so much as they are cannibalizing each other.)

With few exceptions, like Fat Tire and Samuel Adams (although, most microbrewers don’t consider Sam one of them), they never bothered to develop a brand. Instead, they just got clever with names like Moose Drool.

Meanwhile, the largest brand in the market, Budweiser, continues to hold more than 50% market share – practically a monopoly – by having the most meaningful brand in the market.

For the smaller burger brands such as Smashburger and Mooyah Burgers and Fries, they will have limited growth in the future if they don’t develop a brand that captures the highest emotional intensity in the market. They will be deluded into thinking that the McDonald’s and Wendy’s of the world won’t react and their better burgers will eventually win.

As a microbrew drinker and a fan of Five Guys, I’d like to see those smaller brands decide they want to grow up and adopt meaningful brands that go beyond clever and are about who the customer is instead of what they offer. If they do, they can truly transform the market. If not, they will find the growth of the individual brands plateauing and the big three continuing to survive successfully.