Cannes Lions

Burn That Ad

DAVID SÃO PAULO / BURGER KING / 2019

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Overview

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Credits

Overview

Background

Burger King launched in Brazil an in-app sales service. But consumers weren’t using it, mainly because they didn’t know about its existence. So, we engaged people to use the service with an immersive AR experience, using assets of our main competitor: McDonald’s. In Brazil, McDonald’s invests four times more in media than Burger King. Their ads are everywhere, so we hacked them. Using Burger King’s app, anyone could point a cellphone to any McDonald’s ad and see it burning. At the end of the experience, consumers were sent to our in-app store and received a coupon for a free Whopper.

Idea

Inside Burger King’s app, we created an Augmented Reality feature that transforms every McDonalds ad into a Burger King ad using the main asset that differentiates the way BK burgers are made: fire.

Using Augmented Reality, we let people set McDonald’s ads on fire for a free Whopper.

We built a dynamic data base, connected to our app, that recognized any McDonald’s ad (including outdoors, posters, banners, digital ads, social media posts, google search images, Waze ads or even in-store communication, like paper tray and menu boards) and automatically set it on fire, turning it into a free Whopper coupon. Turning every McDonald’s ad into an ad for Burger King.

Strategy

Burger King's app in Brazil has more than 2 million active users - all flame-grilled fans looking for savvy offers and ways to connect further with BK. According to user data, lots of them were not connecting to the platform very often and deleting the app was recurrent due to that lack of interaction. So the challenge was to lure back our consumers - young Brazilians that were connected to the world by their smartphones - back to downloading and interacting with Burger King's app. The new technology presented by the campaign not only gave current app users an innovative new feature but also encouraged new people to download the app and get on board with the experience.

Execution

In Brazil, McDonald’s invests about four times more in media than Burger King.

Their ads are everywhere. But to prove that a BK flame grilled burger tastes better than the competition, we decided to hack the competition using BK’s app and Augmented Reality.

To make it happen, we first created a dynamic data base with every single McDonald’s ad available in the market. Hundreds of them were uploaded to our system. The A.R technology in our app was immediately able to read the ads. By pointing a mobile phone to a McDonalds ad, it automatically transformed the competitor ad into an image of a delicious flame grilled Whopper and generated a coupon for a free burger. Consumers could then choose a BK restaurant nearby to redeem their Whopper. The idea was implemented all over the country.

Outcome

- 1.000.000 downloads in just one month.

- Top Charts in food and drink on App Store.

- 56,4% in-app sales increase.

- 2.800.000 active users on the app.

- The most downloaded BK app around the world

- 1 Billion media Impressions

- An idea that made people think about Burger King every time they saw a McDonald’s ad.

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