In January 2009 advertising agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky unleashed the “Whopper Sacrifice” pheno
menon on Facebook. The ad campaign for fast food chain Burger King promised free hamburger coupons to Facebook members who deleted ten people from their friends lists. Facebook disabled the successful social media campaign after ten days on grounds of privacy violations due to deleted friends being notified they had been dumped for a free burger.
Ironically, the disablement of the popular Facebook application caused even more talk about the BK brand. In the end 82,771 people removed 233,906 friends from their lists in less than a week and Burger King and Crispin Porter and Bogusky made national headlines for their creative campaign. What are the issues at stake? Burger King is a low involvement purchase decision, but it’s in a competitive market of fast food chains.
This campaign has allowed Burger King to expand on its unexpected sense of humor in a platform that remains to be unused to its full potential by brands similar to BK. Most fast food chains that have Facebook or Myspace pages devoted to the brand and products are passive in their involvement with fans. They provide information about the products and events to fans, but don’t engage with them beyond the push factor. The Whopper Sacrifice campaign allows fans to participate with the brand in a fun and unique way by dropping their friends and being rewarded with a free hamburger.
Now, did the Whopper Sacrifice participants drop their real friends and/or acquaintances? Or did they just let go of some dead weight on their friends list? The New York Times estimated the average friend was worth 37 cents.
Pros and cons of the campaign?
The word of mouth factor in this campaign worked wonders for maintaining the Whopper Sacrifice popularity months after being shut down by Facebook. While the Whopper Sacrifice application was still intact it easily became the newest craze on Facebook. National newspapers are still talking about its success. The off the wall tone of the campaign fit well in Burger King’s overall advertising campaigns on traditional media. Around the same time Crispin Porter and Bogusky launched the Whopper Virgins TV commercials.
Unfortunately, Facebook disabled the application and Whopper Sacrifice is no more, but maybe that was in the plan. By stopping the application, talk ensued over the brand and the unique campaign. The application itself was popular, but the simple act of it being shut down caused even more talk. Burger King will be remember for being one of the first fast food brands to use social media in successful way to sell products and create buzz.
Recommendation
Facebook released a statement the following statement regarding the issue of privacy violations: We encourage creativity from developers and brands using Facebook Platform, but we also must ensure that applications follow users’ expectations of privacy. This application facilitated activity that ran counter to user privacy by notifying people when a user removes a friend. We have reached out to the developer with suggested solutions. In the meantime, we are taking the necessary steps to assure the trust users have established on Facebook is maintained.
I would be interested in seeing exactly what they suggested to Burger King or Crispin Porter and Bogusky regarding the campaign. I can’t imagine that whatever they suggested would be as interesting or creative as the original idea. Crispin Porter and Bogusky reacted by stopping the application and posting a simple statement on the Whopper Sacrifice Facebook page that states: “Facebook has disabled Whopper Sacrifice after your love for the Whopper sandwich proved stronger than 233, 906 friends. Whopper Sacrifice has been sacrificed.”
My recommendation would hinge on future social media campaigns since BK is unable to continue the Whopper Sacrifice on Facebook. Finding new and creative ways to pull your audience in and create buzz is going to be instrumental to brands that want to interact with consumers rather than simply push information on them. Social media, like Facebook, allows brands to do that within limits. Tip of the hat to Crispin, Porter and Bogusky for engineering such an interesting campaign.
References
McCarthy, Caroline. “The dark secrets of Whopper Sacrifice” www.news.cnet.com April 3, 2009
Whopper Sacrifice Facebook Page http://apps.facebook.com/sacrifice
Arrington,Michael. “Facebook Blows A Whopper Of An Opportunity” www.techcrunch.com January 14, 2009
Crispin Porter + Bogusky http://cpbgroup.com
Wortham, Jenna. “The Value of a Facebook Friend? About 37 Cents” www.nytimes.com April 12, 2009
