Situation:

Burger King Finland had soft-launched their new food ordering app 6 months ago before our campaign. The app had not gained enough users and it didn't differ from the competitor's apps. The media budget was 0€ so we had to do something interesting to get earned media.

Brief:

Burger King wanted to illustrate the speed and ease of ordering through its new app to boost downloads while increasing visibility.

Objectives:

Our main objective was to get attention in the traditional media and social media and get more downloads for the app.

We also wanted to get more sales orders through the app.

Core KPI's:

10 media hits in the Finnish newspapers.

+20% increase in downloads.

+10% increase in sales orders.

Finns are stereotypically known to be the shyest people on Earth.

So, to serve Finns the way they’d prefer we tapped into this cultural insight and created something new.

World's first 100% Silent Drive-Thru service. A service where you don't need any verbal communication, created for the silent Finns.

The Silent Drive-Thru only works through the Burger King mobile app. Customers can order and pay through the app and then pick up their food from a dedicated Silent parking spot at the restaurant without having to speak to Burger King staff. Instead of queuing in the traditional drive-thru lane, customers who order through the app can choose a convenient time to collect their orders and a Burger King employee will bring it straight to their vehicle.

We needed to do something concrete and creative that would appeal to the target audience and thus gain attention.

When the app was launched, Burger King opened a new restaurant that didn't have a traditional drive-thru. We developed a service that replaced the traditional drive-thru and only worked through the new mobile app. As such, the subject was not very interesting and would not have received attention in the media.

Our creative idea gave us a bold angle that we knew the media might be interested in and it had great potential for virality.

The PR-strategy was to contact journalists that had written about Burger King before, because they already had an interest towards the brand.

Our target group was Burger King customers and fast food consumers in general.

We started by designing the Silent Drive-Thru UX service. Then we implemented it in the mobile app and in the newly opened Burger King restaurant. This took 3 weeks of time.

After the service was live in all touchpoints we sent out a press release to Finnish and global media. We also contacted a few journalists personally to ensure that this concept would get coverage. Immediately within a few hours, we got wide coverage in the Finnish media and the next day the global ones joined in. After traditional media had covered The Silent Drive-Thru it started trending in the social media from Reddit to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Silent Drive-Thru service was launched in one Burger King location and quickly expanded to another restaurant. The client's goal is to expand the concept to at least 15 Burger King restaurants around Finland.

App downloads: +45% growth.

Source: BK internal data

Total impressions (social media + online articles): 411 045 557

Source: Media cards, fiam.fi, Meltwater, SimilarWeb, ComScore.

Sales orders through the app doubled within a month after the launch (and have kept doubling every month since).

Source: BK internal data

App ranking rose from 15 to 5th in the food & drink category within a month after the launch.

Source: AppAnnie

Earned online articles in Finland: 20

Earned online articles globally: 96

Source: Meltwater

Silent Drive-Thru fastens the ordering process on average 7 to 8 minutes, compared to regular drive-thru’s.

Source: BK internal data