To launch this new product offering in a way that was just as spicy as the product, we simply turned disgruntled spicy nugget tweets directed at Wendy’s into promoted Twitter ads from Burger King. This allowed us to infiltrate the feeds of millions of users, sparking a staggering amount of buzz around Burger King’s Spicy Chicken Nuggets. The best part? The usually talkative and combative @Wendys account went silent.

This idea was executed only on Twitter. Over the course of three days, we promoted Twitter users’ angry tweets directed @Wendys for discontinuing their spicy nuggets to help launch Burger King's very own Spicy Chicken Nuggets.

Burger King sold out of a three-month supply of spicy nuggets in four weeks.

This is the stat we’re most proud of, because our simple execution had a profound monetary impact on the business, while simultaneously creating an insatiable demand for the product even after it sold out.

Over 1.5 billion impressions.

We noticed a drastic shift in our target audience’s interaction with the brand. They became more playful in their interaction with us, less critical of our products, and more interested in us as a culture commentator.

105 percent increase in positive sentiment.

In this one digital activation, Burger King completely shifted their tone on social and the way people began perceiving them in the digital space.

87 percent social engagement

Of the over 21,000 mentions of the whitelisting campaign on Twitter, 87 percent were retweets.

In a category where any little edge is the ultimate advantage, we turned a small Twitter media feature called “whitelisting” into a disruptive tactical tool.

Whitelisting is a media feature on Twitter that’s used by brands to promote their own content, but we decided to turn that functionality on its head by doing something with it that’s never been done before: Promote angry tweets directed at a competitor.

In a social space where we needed to boost engagement and positive sentiment, we were able to completely shift the conversation happening around Wendy’s to Burger King overnight with this simple tactic.

The strategy was simple: Create a Twitter campaign that captures the attention of Wendy's digital audience and converts them into Burger King lovers by answering their call for Spicy Chicken Nuggets. The primary Burger King target is adults age 18–34. They are extremely active on social media, spending an average of 45 minutes a day scrolling through their feeds.

In 2017, Wendy’s suddenly discontinued their beloved Spicy Chicken Nuggets. This set Twitter ablaze with spicy nugget fans begging, pleading, and boisterously crying out for them to reverse their decision. So Burger King seized the opportunity to shift the conversation and steal market share from Wendy’s by creating their own Spicy Chicken Nuggets.