The campaign launched on January 5th and in only ten days over 80,000 users added the app to their profile. On January 15th, with 233, 906 friends having been sacrificed, Facebook requested that we take down the application after becoming uncomfortable with the sheer number of participants who were deleting friends. After the application was removed, free media impressions jumped from 13 million to 32 million as reporters, bloggers, and Facebook users all asked “Why did it end?” As a result of the campaign, Burger King awarded 19,236 free Whopper coupons.

To answer the brief, we built an application on the social network, Facebook, to test if people love the Whopper more than their friends. The challenge was simple: Sacrifice (delete) ten of your Facebook friends and receive a free Whopper. There was one twist though; each friend you scarified would be notified of your actions, meaning your entire network would know that you chose flame-broiled meat over friendship. Instead of using bought media to spread our message, we utilized an entire social network looking for an excuse to delete part of their friend list.

Burger King tasked us with building a campaign that demonstrated how much America loves the Whopper, BK’s flagship hamburger. We started by asking ourselves, what would people give up in favour of the Whopper?

The insight came while looking at Facecbook. We realized that people have far more Facebook friends than real-life friends. Why? What is the value of these internet friendships? Would people be willing to delete some of these childhood buddies, ex-lovers and random co-workers, if they just had a good excuse to do so?