Everybody is afraid of clowns. Except for Burger King. To prove it, the king decided to face its fear and invite our scariest enemy for a meal. The message was simple: "Come as a clown, eat like a king". During the night of Halloween celebrations, Burger King will give away a Whopper to everyone that comes dressed as a clown.

The invitation came on October 24th in the form of a video full of horror movie references, powerful visuals and the presence of a familiar face. Was that Ronald McDonald? The character was had enough likeness to not leave any doubt. Following the video, other PR and digital #scaryclownnight executions came: a press release, posts and videos specially made for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, posters and a special wrap for in-restaurant activation. A step by step guide was built to deploy the idea across the globe. The media challenge was to generate the biggest response to the idea with the least investment in paid media. The operation involved 35 countries in a coordinated effort including major exposure in Spain, the UK, Russia, Brazil and the US. What started with a simple insight and an honest joke became a worldwide activation with the best results that Burger King could have expected.

The activation was basically organic, just by using Burger King's owned channels and activating the press. #Scaryclownnight was mentioned in more than 1100 articles in 40 countries reaching 2.1 billion of earned impressions and a total media value of USD 22.4 million. The idea got to the cover of Daily Star in UK/Ireland and mentioned in some of the most watched news all over the world (including the Today Show, People magazine, USA Today and Fox News) and had a massive reverberation in advertising industry being mentioned as one of the best ads in 2017 by AdForum and top pick by Adweek. The biggest results came from people. "Clown" turned up to be the trendiest costume for Halloween and more than 110.000 went to Burger King restaurants on Halloween night dressed as jesters, making of #scaryclownnight the most effective and engaging full-global activation in Burger King's history.

Despite it's global insight and strong pop culture background, #scaryclownnight had the ability to turn a bold idea into an activation that resonates and mobilizes also at an individual level. The idea stood out by its simple but powerful call to action "come as a clown, eat like a king". The result was an impresive direct response: hundreds of thousands joined the prank, got dressed as clowns and chose to celebrate their Halloween night at a Burger King restaurant.

Generating buzz is all about understanding about pop culture and context, so we searched for insights by social media listening and digital data. Interesting findings came from observing the promotion for the movie It and its reverberation. Thanks to a strong campaign and an extra dose of nostalgia, the remake was one of the most commented topics on internet in months. The movie hit the theaters just in time to inspire people for their Halloween pranks. After 5 years of the popularity of zombies, ghosts and vampires, Google Trends showed that clowns where emerging as the 3rd most popular scary costume in 2017. Pop culture gave Burger King a once in a lifetime opportunity. The strategy was clear: take advantage of the context and well-known Burger King/McDonald's rivalry to come up with a cheeky and bold publicity stunt.

QSR is a rough category to succeed. Players tend to focus their communication strategies on building fame and driving traffic to their restaurants. In this context, reach some buzz is key to stay on top of mind. The last three years Halloween has proven to be one of the best opportunities for Burger King to stand out and make some noise, especially on social media and press. After the the Black Whopper (in 2015) and dressing up a whole restaurant as a McDonalds' ghost (2016), in 2017 we shouldn't just come up with an epic idea but also engage people and make them visit a Burger King across the globe. With the launch of It, Pennywise reborn as one of the scariest characters in the mainstream. Burger King has never had such a great opportunity to troll the McDonald's mascot Ronald and his not that friendly figure.