When the Sun's fury in Kuwait was impacting Burger King's business and taking the consumers' attention, we hijacked the conversations and diverted the attention to the brand by doing the unlikely - instead of trying to fight the Sun, we partnered with it!
Staying true to the brand's core of flame - grilling, we made the world's first Sun Flame - Grilled Whopper - the iconic Whopper flame - grilled using the power of the Sun.
The news of this unusual partnership spread far and wide generating whopping coverage leading to strong positive impact on brand sales, awareness & engagement.
Background
The Post – Ramadan summer 2018 was a challenging one for Burger King Kuwait. Many people had left the country and soaring temperatures forced those who stayed to stay indoors - Consumers' interest, engagement & sales were declining & there was no news to give till September '18.
With the marketing budget for this period being 70% lesser than usual, it wasn't easy to find our way into the minds of the already less – interested consumers. To generate significant reach, we needed an idea that would garner fame and attention beyond what could be paid for.
The client’s brief was – “Make people hear about the brand from their friends in the region & abroad”.
We needed to create something that would get not just the local media interest but get virality & share-ability on a regional & international level, putting Burger King Kuwait on the global map.
Describe the creative idea.
With summer temperatures going beyond 50ºC, Kuwait is known to be the hottest place on Earth. But the people of Kuwait have kind of a love – hate relationship with summer. While they don’t really enjoy being in the weather, they secretly enjoy talking about the infamous ‘hottest place’ tag for the country.
The Sun's fury doesn't give them the freedom to roam, but the Sun takes all their attention & interest!
So how could we make Burger King gain the consumers attention when the biggest barrier to its business is the Sun itself?
Our idea was simple: If you can't fight the Sun, join it!
We decided to partner the Sun by leveraging the one brand truth that sets Burger King apart from its competitors: Flame - Grilling!
Presenting the world's first Sun Flame – Grilled Whopper: The iconic Whopper flame – grilled by the Sun!
Describe the strategy.
While fast food appeals to a wide age – band of consumers, we decided to focus on the 18 – 35 year olds. Mainly because Burger King attracted lesser number of consumers from this age band and more from the higher age band despite not targeting that segment.
As we wanted to appeal to an audience that resides in the digital world, our strategy was to maximize coverage in online consumer media. Our research with the target audience indicated that multi - topic content curation platforms have very strong affinity followed by platforms that focus on specific topics like food, technology etc. These helped us prioritize the media specially for regional & international coverage.
We planned our idea as a unique brand experience that would be executed as a surprise activation. This way, we would be able to leverage the consumers' experience to create entertaining & news - worthy content.
Describe the execution.
We created a solar machine (in partnership with SolSourceTM) that harnesses the power of the Sun’s rays to create the ultimate flame – grill experience.
On 22nd July 2018, one of the hottest days in 2018, when the temperature touched 50°C, Burger King Kuwait surprised the consumers at one of its flagship stores by serving the 100% Sun Flame – Grilled Whopper sandwiches.
The whole experience right from the consumers’ surprise on hearing about the new sandwich, the Whopper being Sun flame – grilled to the initially skeptical consumers’ enjoying the world's first and only Sun flame - grilled Whopper was recorded and we created engaging content from it.
On 23rd & 24th July, the video content was posted on the brand's social media channels. We partnered with 2 popular 'newscaster' influencers to amplify the reach. There was no media money that was spent to push the content.
List the results.
Awareness:
- Burger King's TOM Awareness amongst the target audience went up by a whopping 17%. The brand's TOM Awareness had increased by 6% in the past 4 months.
Coverage:
- Generated more than 40 Million Earned Media impressions worth more than $7.5 Million, with the news spreading to more than 25 countries across 6 continents through 150+ pieces of coverage. The content was covered by popular global, regional & local Tier 1 online media platforms including BoredPanda, Business Insider, MSN, DesignTaxi, Arab News, Trendhunter, Adweek & many more.
- Burger King's rating as the "Favorite Restaurant" increased by 63%
Business & SM results:
- 12% Increase in Jul - Aug '18 sales as compared to last year
- The video content got more than 2 million views in just 3 days, with 40% higher engagement
- The content got organically covered by more than 7 prominent influencers