We turned Burger King’s most famous sandwich, the Whopper, into the most incredible and sweet flame-grilled combination ever: The Chocolate Whopper. But not saying whether it was real or not. This new Whopper was made with chocolate cake bun, flame-grilled chocolate patty, raspberry syrup, white chocolate rings, candied blood oranges, milk chocolate leaves and vanilla frosting. Designed to create discussion and desire, it was too good to be true. Because, well… it wasn’t true.

We made a full Chocolate Whopper product demo, showing all the Chocolate Whopper ingredients (chocolate cake bun, flame-grilled chocolate patty, raspberry syrup, white chocolate rings, candied blood oranges, milk chocolate leaves and vanilla frosting) and posted on Youtube and Facebook two days before April’s Fool for more than 22 countries. At the end of the video the message was dubious: “Coming soon… maybe” to intentionally cause confusion. Only on April’s 1st we revealed that the Chocolate Whopper would never be an actual product. Still the reaction from people and news was positive and immediate.

3.1 billion global impressions.

18 million dollars in earned media.

22 countries participating.

Over 30MM views in three days.

More mentions for Burger King than the top 5 Chocolate brands for the same period (Easter)

Dozens of homemade Chocolate Whoppers, turning a fake news into real news.

Millions of people left only with the desire to prove the Chocolate Whopper.

This campaign proves how PR can be used to amplify a well-crafted April Fools-themed brand story around the world. Launched in more than 25 countries, the Chocolate Whopper was exclusively designed to create discussion and make news headlines. Because it was a fake product launch, its only purpose was to raise brand awareness and engagement, which it did in a massive scale: more than 3 Billion impressions worldwide. And when people started to make their own versions of the fake product, fake news became real news.

The strategy was launch a fake product, the Chocolate Whopper, taking advantage of the fact that Easter and April Fools fell on the same day. We assembled an expert team of culinarists to develop the recipe so that ingredient made sense and the final product was a believable “translation” of the iconic Whopper sandwich. We shot a beautiful product demo and released it on Social Media and in 25 countries around the globe, so there would be guaranteed buzz around the idea. Also, we did not reveal whether it was real or not, to intentionally cause confusion. Also a few real versions of the Chocolate Whopper were delivered to daytime TV shows to get maximum attention.

April Fools jokes are commonplace for brands like Burger King. But this year, when Easter and April Fools fell on the same day (April 1st) Burger King saw an opportunity to create an epic idea to celebrate this moment, doing something so delicious that would be bigger than just a prank. We wanted to create something that would truly mess with people’s desire and stand out from all the other April’s Fool pranks that other brands would make.