Every summer, millions of flame grills are rolled out in backyards across New Zealand. For Kiwis, the summer and flame grilled food go hand in hand.

So we decided to harness the nation’s love of their BBQs to convince them once and for all that Burger King cook their burgers over real flames.

Hundreds of New Zealanders were given the opportunity to open a Burger King in their own backyard and cook burgers the way Burger King does. Not with hi-tech, limited edition flames, but the same flames you’d find in the barbeque on your back deck. Suddenly every home with a BBQ had the potential to become the home of the Whopper.

Backyard Burger King kits were given away through an integrated campaign that utilised TV, digital, in-store and social with potential candidates directed to apply at backyardbk.co.nz, if selected, they won a Backyard Burger King kit.

Via TV, digital, social and in-store messaging, consumers were invited to apply for their very own Backyard Burger King at www.backyardbk.co.nz. If selected, they were supplied with an incredible kit – a Burger King restaurant in a box. Complete with ingredients to make 16 Whoppers, customised cooking utensils, hat, apron, matches and even a light up Burger King street sign. Everything they needed to turn their home into the Home of the Whopper.

5 of the activations were filmed with a professional crew to create shareable content and drive further entries. Consumer generated footage and photos were collated on www.backyardbkfanhub.co.nz and used to create the summation TVC at the end of the campaign.

Throughout the campaign, everything we did was aimed at creating engaging social content – both in the hero pieces we made and also from the UGC that our many Backyard Burger Kings created.

The biggest single shift has come in the our core KPI – driving belief in New Zealanders that Burger King flame grill their burgers.

From a pre-campaign starting point of only 19% of people believing BK flame grill (December 2015, pre campaign) in the first two months since the campaign launched at the start of the year this is up to a whopping 63%! (March 2016, mid-campaign)

This shift has translated into real world sales. After a prolonged period of stagnation, BK sales are up 7.5% this quarter – their largest single quarter spike in 22 years.

Backyard Burger King applications through our Facebook page numbered over 20,000, and whilst this campaign was never advertised outside of NZ we received entries from over 83 countries, everywhere from New York city to Mogolia!