Six months after the successful launch of Burger King in Cape Town, Atmosphere and King James were tasked to launch Burger King (BK) in Gauteng – the heart of the over-saturated fast food industry in SA. The brief was not easy – get customers simultaneously into three restaurants across Gauteng so as to deliver combined sales of at least 3000 burgers on the launch weekend, while making the Whopper, Burger King’s signature burger, the hero of the campaign.

  • Date: June 1, 2015
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The Challenge

The entry of BURGER KING® into SA was less than eight months before and the news value of three more restaurants in Gauteng was limited. In addition, launching three restaurants in different locations on the same day and time required a mix of media – earned and paid – as well as on-the-ground activations at three locations to ensure feet through the door.

The Idea

We followed an interactive, integrated and fun approach to ensure that fans of BURGER KING® SA created the noise, leading to pent-up demand for the iconic burger. Instead of sharing the news ourselves, we inspired fans to share the arrival of Burger King in Gauteng by tapping into the biggest trend of 2013/2014 - the ‘selfie’. And so, ‘Whopper Your Selfie’ was created.

The Solution

It kicked off with thousands of uniquely numbered WHOPPER® replicas hidden all over the city - from billboards to bookstores to among toys in claw machines – even at the bottom of a hotel swimming pool. The first lucky few to post a ‘selfie’ with their unique WHOPPER® could claim a real one on launch day. Excitement mounted and WHOPPER® fever gripped Gauteng. The more ‘selfies’ posted to our central hub, www.whopperyourselfie.co.za, the more the news spread. Within two weeks, 2000 unique numbers were claimed and 3000 hopefuls submitted their ‘selfies’. This led to more than two million media impressions across Facebook and Twitter, and BURGER KING® SA trended on launch day, 1 February 2014. Fans flooded to the three restaurants, which lead to other consumers wanting a piece of the action. The snowball effect caught the attention of the media and the editorial coverage drove further visits to the restaurants.

The Results

We delivered an integrated solution – consumer and business PR, influencer engagement, strong social media execution, event activation, radio pre-promos and competitions, as well as out-of-home advertising. The results Positive media coverage valued at R3.3m (1:1) over 2 weeks with 134 on-message media clippings in local media 94% of the coverage was positive towards BURGER KING® 30 000 new Facebook fans, which represents a 39% increase 152 million media impression across Facebook and Twitter 3000 ‘selfies’ submitted in 17 days This resulted in: More than 7 000 Whoppers sold during the launch period, which represents 133% over target (goal: 3 000 Whoppers) 4 000 people visited the stores during the launch weekend 25 816 Whoppers sold during the first week: (target: 10 000), exceeding expectations by 158% On launch day, the store served more than 2 253 WHOPPER®S to paying customers Launch day attended by close to 4 500 people – 166% over target The queue outside BK remained hundreds deep for weeks post launch

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