Burger King only sold a penny Whopper to people standing inside a McDonald's

the problem

The Burger King app trailed rivals no matter how much ordinary promotion it ran

background

the move

The app used geofencing to detect anyone within 600 feet of one of 14,000 McDonald's locations, unlocked a one-cent Whopper offer only there, and turn-by-turn routed them to the nearest Burger King to redeem it — turning a competitor's own real estate into Burger King's ad space.

the payoff

1.5 million app downloads in nine days, made it the #1 app in Apple's App Store, and — per Adweek — a reported 37-to-1 return on investment with 3.5 billion earned-media impressions. Burger King's overall U.S. comparable sales rose a modest 0.8% that year, per Marketing Dive; the campaign's clearest impact is in app installs and earned media, not overall same-store sales.

what came after

'Whopper Detour' is now taught as a case study in geofenced marketing and stands as Burger King's most-downloaded-app moment on record; the tactic of triggering an offer at a competitor's own location has since been adapted by other quick-service chains, with more mixed results.

references

1. [1]Marketing Dive — Burger King's 'Whopper Detour' generated 1.5M app downloadsMarketing Dive, 2019marketingdive.com
2. [2]Adweek — 'Whopper Detour,' Burger King's Masterpiece of Trolling, Wins Direct Grand Prix at CannesAdweek, 2019adweek.com

was it genius?

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