Recently the fast food chain Burger King has been on the news for a marketing ploy where they went to the accounts of people with large social media followings and began to “like” their posts dating way back to 2009. This of course got reactions from the big influencers wondering what was going on as they commented publicly about. With that reaction it gave the company what they wanted which was to get people’s attention that they were bringing back a product called the funnel cake fries that was introduced in 2009. I guess you can say they fell for it.
That then made me think back of a recent marketing gimmick they did which was to promote its app. Essentially their pitch was if you go within 600ft of its competitor Mcdonalds with this app you will then qualify to buy its Whopper burger for one cent. Can you imagine that where a company is sending people to the competition to get this deal? In many ways it’s so smart too as it is so different that you can’t help to talk about it. Plus you get the item so cheap that people would actually do it.
Makes you think where is being entertaining and outlandish per se an essential part of the overall experience for your customers? It makes me think of things like Super Bowl ads too that are coming up tomorrow where for the most part many companies treat it more like a big budget production that needs to entertain rather than just a commercial to advertise the details about something.
Thinking advertising from an entertainment point of view isn’t the first reaction a lot of people have as it is usually more about brand awareness through traditional means. But in Burger Kings case it’s almost like they are specifically trying to make things that go viral. Maybe everyone needs to put on the hat of like a show producer now whenever you come up with a marketing act.