Everybody is afraid of clowns. Except for Burger King.

To prove it, the king decided to face its fear and invite our scariest enemy for a meal. The message was simple: "Come as a clown, eat like a king". During the night of Halloween celebrations, Burger King will give away a Whopper to everyone that comes dressed as a clown.

The invitation came on October 24th in the form of a video full of horror movie references, powerful visuals and the presence of a familiar face. Was that Ronald McDonald? The character was had enough likeness to not leave any doubt. Following the video, other PR and digital #scaryclownnight executions came: a press release, posts and videos specially made for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, posters and a special wrap for in-restaurant activation.

A step by step guide was built to deploy the idea across the globe. The media challenge was to generate the biggest response to the idea with the least investment in paid media. The operation involved 35 countries in a coordinated effort including major exposure in Spain, the UK, Russia, Brazil and the US. What started with a simple insight and an honest joke became a worldwide activation with the best results that Burger King could have expected.

The activation was basically organic, just by using Burger King's owned channels and activating the press. #Scaryclownnight was mentioned in more than 1100 articles in 40 countries reaching 2.1 billion of earned impressions and a total media value of USD 22.4 million.

The idea got to the cover of Daily Star in UK/Ireland and mentioned in some of the most watched news all over the world (including the Today Show, People magazine, USA Today and Fox News) and had a massive reverberation in advertising industry being mentioned as one of the best ads in 2017 by AdForum and top pick by Adweek.

The biggest results came from people. "Clown" turned up to be the trendiest costume for Halloween and more than 110.000 went to Burger King restaurants on Halloween night dressed as jesters, making of #scaryclownnight the most effective and engaging full-global activation in Burger King's history.