Burger King’s mascot, the King, has never been a man of many words. Zero actually. But all that changed when we realized 2 things. 1) That April 15th was the 199th annual celebration of National American Sign Language Day. And 2) that despite being America’s favorite hamburger for more than 50 years, there was no official sign in American Sign Language (ASL) for the Whopper.

In ASL, proper nouns don’t usually have a specific sign, they have to be finger spelled, letter by letter, and unlike any other language, there’s not a regulatory linguistic entity that creates new signs, they come from the people themselves and then spread.

So the King broke his long-lasting silence, but he did so in ASL, to celebrate the Deaf community and invite them to create an easier/official way to order the Whopper in their language, the #WhopperSign

The week leading up to National ASL Day we put the King (untranslated) speaking ASL in a translation box on an already running BK TV spot, secretly asking the Deaf community for suggestions for the Whopper sign by using #WhopperSign.

Then we sent the King to a Burger King in Washington DC adjacent to the largest Deaf University in the United States, and transformed the restaurant by changing every word to ASL.

There, the King surprised the Deaf community, talking with them in Sign Language asking for new sign ideas and discussing them together. We released an online film of the event to promote the campaign online.

During ASL day, the King had video conversations via social media with everyone who had sent their suggestions using the #WhopperSign

The King, together with the Deaf community, co-created an official sign, making Burger King the first brand with a sign in ASL.

Results for April 15, 2016, National American Sign Language Day:

+3 Million views. That’s 3 times the deaf population in the US.

The campaign had a 98% positive sentiment

+120.000 Shares on social media.

+200 Million Media Impressions

Burger King granted a Scholarship for Deaf Students at Gallaudet

Over 200 Whopper Sign suggestions.

First ASL sign co-created with a brand.

The Whopper sign is going into Burger King’s employee training manuals so that

anyone will be able to order a Whopper using it.