2019 Winners & Shortlists

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

What sets Burger King apart from its competitors is Flame - Grilling. At a time of declining interest & sales, instead of resorting to price promotions or 'get ____ free' offers, we decided to leverage the brand's core. During Kuwait's scorching heat, we decided to partner with the Sun and give the ultimate flame - grilled experience to our customers - the world's first Whopper flame - grilled by the Sun! We didn't limit it to an in-store experience and created engaging content around the activation that generated overwhelming social & earned media engagement for the brand.

Background

The Post – Ramadan summer period in 2018 was a challenging one for Burger King Kuwait - sales were declining & there was no new product in the pipeline till September '18. The only way we could get the incremental sales in the short duration and arrest the sales decline was to get a sudden spike in the consumers' interest for the brand - which meant boosting the brand's TOM awareness, in a short duration. As such, this could be done with an attractive offer as well. But, with the marketing budget for this period being 70% lesser than usual, we knew it was difficult to find our way into the minds of the already less – interested consumers. To generate strong buzz & significant reach, we needed an idea that would garner fame and attention beyond what could be paid for.

Describe the creative idea.

With summer temperatures going beyond 50 deg. C, 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 really becomes the centre of their universe! Almost all the conversations revolve around the Sun, its wrath & fury in Kuwait. So how could we make Burger King gain the consumers attention when all they were interested in was talking about the heat? Instead of trying to fight the Sun, we decided to partner it 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: 1. It represents the core demographic for Burger fast food category 2. Burger King attracted lesser number of consumers from this age band and more from the higher age band despite not targeting that segment. We took this as an opportunity to engage with the younger audience. Our research pointed that for this audience, Interesting, talk-worthy content = cool brand. We needed to do something that'd make them talk about Burger King. So we planned our idea as a unique brand experience that would be executed as a surprise activation. This way, we would not only be able to engage with our consumers in - store but would also be able to leverage their 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.

Not only did it deliver short term business results, the news of the Sun Flame - Grilled Whopper got hotter than the grill itself, generating overwhelming awareness, social & earned media engagement. - The brand achieved 12% sales growth in the July end - Aug '18 period, over last year - 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 - The video content got more than 2 million views in just 3 days, with 40% higher engagement - Burger King's TOM Awareness amongst the target audience went up by a whopping 17%. To put things in perspective, the brand's TOM Awareness had increased by 6% in the past 4 months. Looking at the results, we had only one thing to say - sometimes, it's cool to be in the hottest place on earth!