While Burger King is no stranger to game-changing marketing tactics, The Whopper Detour stands out.

1. For its audacity, being the first time ever that a brand geofenced its competitor’s locations, taking conquesting to a new level.

2. It was marketing aikido, using McDonald’s biggest advantage (# of locations) against them, turning them into an asset for Burger King.

3. We didn’t just troll McDonald’s, we invited people to join in on the fun, using tech and gamification, yielding an overwhelming response.

4. The idea produced record-breaking results that will transform BK’s business for years to come.

In 2015, only 11% of fast-food consumers placed an order using a mobile app, compared to nearly 40% in 2018. And by 2020, mobile ordering is poised to generate $38 billion in sales.

Realizing the need to fully capitalize on this, and being late to the game vs. the rest of the category, Burger King overhauled its app to offer order-ahead functionality.

Being last to the party, Burger King had to do something radical to garner attention, engage consumers, and give them a reason to download the updated BK App (our main KPI).

McDonald’s outnumbers BK restaurants 2-to-1 in the U.S. So, in the spirit of Burger King’s challenger mentality, we didn’t just do a promo. Nor did we simply troll McDonald’s. We turned our biggest competitor’s advantage into our own, by turning their restaurants into touchpoints of OUR campaign, inviting consumers to order a 1-cent Whopper that could only be ordered “at” McDonald’s through the new BK App.

To do this, we geofenced 14,000 McDonald’s stores nationwide. If a user was within 600 ft. of a McDonald’s, the BK App unlocked the promotion, and once the order was placed, the app then navigated them to the nearest BK for pickup. It was a mind twist that had to be perfectly executed to keep the user experience seamless so that consumers could join in on the fun.

Millennials and Gen Z grew up with tech, so getting real estate on their phones is key for Burger King’s long-term strategy. We know they don’t watch linear TV and are skeptical of marketing. They don’t visit BK restaurants as often as their parents, nor do they think BK is particularly “cool.” They seek experiences and brands that are real and authentic –– something the QSR industry is battling as a whole. It was imperative for us to bring our target in as part of the promo activation –– tapping into the social nature of trolling and gamifying the redemption experience, by simultaneously tapping into burger culture and the subversive nature of secret menus and the like.

The Whopper Detour was a 9-day mobile app promotion by Burger King, running

12/04/18 to 12/12/18. The offer was available nationwide in the U.S. (not valid in Alaska and Hawaii) at participating BK restaurants and it unlocked at over 14,000 geofenced McDonald’s restaurants.

We primarily leveraged social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram); targeted digital display through Foursquare and Waze; and high-impact traditional placements with guerrilla OOH and a New York Post full-page print ad.

During the 9-day promotion, The Whopper Detour garnered 3.5 billion impressions, an 818% increase in Twitter mentions for the brand, and $40 million in earned media. The app was downloaded 1.5 million times and ranked #1 on both iOS and Google Play app stores for several days, beating out the likes of Facebook, Amazon, YouTube, and Instagram. The success translated into business results: Burger King saw the highest foot traffic in over 4 years. Despite the fact that Whopper sandwiches were going for only a penny, the total sales value sold through the mobile app increased by 3x during the promotion and has doubled ever since, a result 40x bigger than BK’s historical digital promo record. Overall, the campaign yielded an ROI of 37:1. This 33% increase in mobile customer base also brought a $15 million increase in projected sales for the following year.