When the last film of the most famous space saga in the world was about to screen, it was a once-in-the-lifetime moment in pop culture. Everyone around the world, fans or not, was looking forward to it.

To cut through the clutter and engage people at this special moment, BK needed to create an experience beyond expectation. We leveraged the pop-cultural trend around spoilers – the most searched for and at the same time most hated thing on the internet – to generate global buzz for the brand and its most iconic product, the Whopper, while increasing customer en-gagement and brand loyalty.

One week before the movie premiere, BK confronted people with the toughest choice: Are you willing to read brutal spoilers of your beloved film, in exchange for a free Whopper?

A special voice-activated coupon was integrated into the BK app. People had to read spoilers out to their mobile, which was checked in real time by voice recognition technology. Only correct reading, proving the person really got the spoilers, would unlock a free Whopper.

Creatively utilizing voice technology enabled the experience, making it more fun and engag-ing.

To promote the campaign, a BK Spoiler Restaurant was created. It served free food, but eve-rything contained spoilers: posters, staff T-shirts, food packaging, WIFI password, even all food names on the menu, which customers had to speak out to place orders. Fans of the saga, in addition to regular customers, were invited to this store. The experience was made into an online film.

The world had seen enough brand crossovers with the saga. BK must make a disruptive move, to catch everyone’s attention.

People, especially movie fans, hate spoilers, and this saga boasts the most passionate fan group. But what if reading spoilers is exactly the price they need to pay, for another thing they also love?

People’s passion for Whopper has been well known and proven through past campaigns. By tapping into the worldwide pop-cultural phenomenon in an unprecedented way, this time BK put people’s Whopper love to the ultimate test – leveraging also the reach of thousands of bloggers and influencers.

Rather than disappearing in the saga’s discourse, the campaign used the saga’s popularity to enrich BK’s own story, and its reputation as a playful, provocative brand.

Primary target was the saga’s extensive fanbase who really looked forward to the last film. The secondary target were people open to fast food.

The campaign rolled out in Germany one week before the film’s release (December 11th – 19th, 2019). The Spoiler Restaurant was opened in advance, and the online film was launched on the first day of the campaign to kick off PR and discussions.

As it went viral, the online film invited more people to try the digital experience in the app.

Various other channels were also used to target the audience and drive them to the app, such as web banners, social media ads and Stories, pre-rolls placed before the film’s trail-ers, and geo-based push notifications for cinema goers on the premiere day.

The spoilers in the voice-activated coupon were hosted by a partnered film website, while the ones in the Spoiler Restaurant were carefully phrased to avoid copyright issues. All partici-pants were warned about the spoilers before they started the experience in the app, or en-tered the Spoiler Restaurant.

By putting people’s Whopper love to the greatest challenge, BK achieved 330% higher posi-tive brand perception, 11 times higher brand recommendation, doubled purchase intent, (YouGov BrandIndex), as well as 75% increase in app downloads (3Digital Analytics).

Trending across global news, fan forums and social media, the campaign also successfully hijacked the conversation about the much-anticipated film, with 2.2 billion impressions on 6 continents, and over $10 million worth of earned media (Argus Data Insights).

However, it went way beyond generating temporary publicity. By trolling the entire spoiler culture, BK earned a permanent place within the worldwide cultural phenomenon around the movie. Even after the campaign was over, the press and online discussions still kept men-tioning “Spoiler Whopper” and “Burger King”, when they were commenting on the last film of the saga.