We needed to promote Burger King's new tagline "BE YOUR WAY", use it as an ignition for conversations around acceptance and equal rights, and get people to our stores.

To achieve all of this, we decided to let our own products talk. We made a simple tweak on a core asset of our brand: we wrapped the Whopper with the colors of the rainbow and called it the Proud Whopper. Right after its release, people flocked the store to taste this "new" hamburger. But once they unwrapped the Proud Whopper, the message inside explained everything: "We are all the same inside."

The Proud Whopper was just like any other Whopper. The wrapper and a video made with the reactions of people eating the Proud Whopper took over social media and mass media publications, being shared, reblogged, posted on Instagram, sold on eBay, and even used as news content on USA Today, New York Times, CBS, and many more.

To reach far beyond our QSR category, to be seen as one of the most meaningful brands in the world, by being admired for what we stand for. In order to make it happen, we had two short-term objectives:

1) Create cultural impact, measurable by earned media impressions and overall media sentiment.

2) Change brand perception and be part of the conversations.

3) Improve overall perception of the brand, amongst QSR consumers.

In just one week, the Proud Whopper reignited conversation about equal rights, generating over 7 million views (94% positive/neutral social sentiment), 1.1 billion impressions worth $21 million in earned media (on vehicles such as New York Times, USA Today, The Guardian), over 450000 blog mentions, and became the #1 trending topic on Facebook and Twitter.

According to IPSOS research, the Proud Whopper reached 1 out of every 5 Americans. The wrapper became a souvenir, a symbol of acceptance, taking over Instagram, and even being sold on EBAY for up to US$ 1,025.

The film with people’s reactions to the launch of this “new” burger generated hundreds of response videos online. The campaign scored +24% in “made me want to buy” versus the average score of all QSR ads during that same period of time. Burger King total sales in the US grew by 4.7% during the week of this activity.

Our idea was to ignite the conversation about equal rights and the brand's new tagline using the brand's own product. We thought that, if Burger King could build over 200000 different burgers, it accepts any burger, no matter what it is.

So we invited people to try a new one: the Proud Whopper, a regular Whopper wrapped with the colors of the rainbow. When opened, the wrapper revealed a message: "We are all the same inside." People flocked the BK store selling the Proud Whopper, a store at 8th and Market in San Francisco, exactly where the parade ends.

The reactions during the whole process of buying the burger, unwrapping, and discovering the message generated an online film, which spread through social medias and mass media publications.

After decades using the same tagline "HAVE IT YOUR WAY", Burger King decided it was time to push it further. And in May 2014, the brand changed it to "BE YOUR WAY".

Our objective was to promote this change and use it to ignite conversation about acceptance and equal rights around the world. We decided to make our own differential talk: if Burger King could build over 200000 different burgers, it accepts any burger, no matter what it is. So we invited people to try a new burger: the Proud Whopper, a Whopper wrapped with the colors of the rainbow.

Based on a large quantitative segmentation study by Copernicus in US in early 2014, we had identified that the largest spend in our product category came from a group we called “Aspires”.

Aspires represent 20% of the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) consumers but over-index on consumption, thus they end up representing 27% of the category spend (the most of all segments). When we convert these folks into our fans, they tend to spend at least 30% more “per ticket” than the average fast food consumer. We also knew that these guys cared deeply about the social issues around them.

A 2014 Gallup poll showed that 78% of the population between 18 to 29 years old was in favor of same-sex marriage (up from 41% in 1996). Topics like this felt like they could be rich areas through which brands could ignite conversations and experiences with them.