Why Is Burger King Asking You to Eat at McDonalds
By: Mehboob Khan
Tags: Marketing, Creativity, McDonalds, Burger King, Advertising

Now Burger king asking you to order from McDonald’s is akin to a Republican asking to vote for Biden. Or Coca Cola asking you to have Pepsi. It just doesn’t happen.

To get a little perspective, and to understand the intense rivalry among the two giants, let’s dig into some of the bizarre Burger King campaigns that have sucked all the juices out of your Big Macs.

The Whopper Detour

What do you do if you have to make people download your app on their phones? You give an offer, a discount or a freebie. Likewise, Burger King gave a Whopper for just 1-cents.

But being able to gorge on the whopper after downloading the Burger King app was not the reason this marketing campaign won the Titanium, Direct and the Grand Prix awards at the 2019 Cannes Lions International.

The Whopper Detour

The whopper was available for next to nothing only if you downloaded the app and then ordered the Whopper within 600 ft of a McDonalds restaurant. A clever mix of technology — Geofencing if you were wondering — and marketing ingenuity.

Not that Burger King had created a print ad or a tv commercial that trolled its rival — a ploy that we often saw during the cola wars. It was the fact that people themselves were trolling McDonald’s that made the campaign so brilliant. People were literally sitting at McDonalds parking lots, ordering Whoppers.

What can be more embarrassing for a behemoth such as McDonalds where its own employees are pointing customers to the nearest Burger King joint?

Never Trust a Clown

From McDonalds parking lots, enter the movie hall.

Stephen King fans would remember the movie IT. There was much fanfare about the movie and people went in hordes to watch the movie. But no one knew that along with the horrifying chills while munching popcorn and slurping coke, they will also get a shot of marketing ingenuity.

As the movie finished and end credits started rolling, a message flashed on the screen which said,

“Moral of the Story: Never Trust a Clown.”

Bang!

The entire audience went bonkers.

Never Trust a Clown

Burger King called it their longest ad ever. And indeed it was. Their message fitted right in the movie’s context and delivered a painful low blow to their rival just as they were about to dash out of the hall.

They topped up the campaign by sharing the McDonalds tagline as I am Loving IT from the original I am loving it.

Along with the buns, Burger King really knows how to spice up its puns.

Size Matters

Do you know that the Whopper is much bigger than McDonald’s?

You might, or you might not. Some people don’t have an eye for detail.

So Burger King cleared the air once and for all with its “Whopper of a Secret” campaign.

A Whopper of a Secret

The tongue-in-cheek campaign showed people that the Big Mac was hidden behind every Whopper in all of their advertisements. But because the Big Mac is so tiny compared to the Whopper, you could not see it.

One Roasted Kanye Meal Please

Kanye West’s association with alt-right trolls such as Candace Owens, and his pro Trump positions have often landed him in several controversies. He even nominated himself for this year’s presidential election. Talking about whacky ideas!

As described aptly in this article in the Fast company, he had veered from being a “revered creative who often makes controversial statements” to “toxic alt right fartcloud.”

So when his tweet saying “McDonald’s is my favorite restaurant,” was picked up by the Burger King social listening algorithm, they latched onto the opportunity to quickly turn the tables. They tweeted with the caption “Explains a Lot” over the Kanye West’s tweet.

The tweet instantly grabbed the eyeballs of thousands and became the most liked branded tweet of all time.

Burger King’s response to Kanye West’s tweet

An Offer They Can’t Refuse

The recent friendly gesture of Burger King is not something totally out of the blue. Back in 2015, Burger King had come up with another such campaign called the “peace offering” or the “McWhopper” campaign.

The idea behind the campaign was to create awareness of the International Peace Day which is celebrated on 21 September every year. Burger King proposed that Mcdonalds should set aside their differences, and they both should offer a joint burger called the McWhopper. The proceeds from the sales would go to a non profit Peace One Day.

For it’s sheer brilliance, the McWhopper was named the king of all media at the Cannes International Festival for Creativity and walked away with the coveted Grand Prix award.

The McWhopper Campaign

Burger King took the first step and even created a website with kick-ass content for the new burger. But McDonalds did not find the campaign amusing and politely declined the proposal for which it faced severe backlash.

The genius of the campaign was that Burger King would have gained social mileage no matter what the response of McDonalds would have been.

McDonalds had to choose from the lesser of the two evils. If it had accepted the offer, Burger King still would have had the upper hand of being the one to come up with the offer. And if McDonalds would have rejected — which it did — it would face a backlash, which it did.

The headline of this article in Forbes sums up what people felt about McDonalds after the refusal.

“McDonalds Chooses Pride Over Peace With Burger King’s McWhoppers offer.”

King of Hearts

Burger King has mastered the art of fine topical marketing. Be it the IT campaign or the Kanye roast, Burger King frequently creates a lasting impact by finding contexts that would help further it’s messages. It rides the wave with perfection.

And now, when the virus has sucked out the life of economies world over, leaving thousands without work, pushing millions back into poverty, Burger King is spreading the message of how important it is to help each other. By setting an example, it is nudging people to help others in this time of chaos. It’s bringing empathy back in vogue.

Maybe it is the future of marketing. Or rather, it should be the future of marketing. The ROI of campaigns should not only be measured in terms of impressions or increase in footfalls but also in terms of the social change the campaign stirred.

Brands change lifestyle, they create habits. They are the millennial religions that billions follow to know what’s moral and what’s not. They help us make sense of the chaotic world that surrounds us.

So, along with the awareness and interest that brands generate for their products, they should also work frequently towards creating a better society.

As Ann Tran, a brand consultant and Tedx speaker says,