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Nothing I like better than healthy debate. I got used to it growing up with ten siblings who “debated” over everything from peanut butter (half liked smooth, half chunky) to socks (who gets to wear the ones that only have little holes?).
So, while it’s already old news in today’s “fifteen nanoseconds of fame” world, I am still enjoying the commotion and arguments caused by the recent Whopper Sacrifice promotion run by Burger King on Facebook.
My opinion: the promotion is a superb example of generating word-of-mouth (and tons of PR) with some unorthodox, counter-intuitive, out-of-the-box, pushing-the-envelope, beyond-the-nine-dots thinking.
In case you missed it, here’s what happened:
Burger King launched an application on Facebook called Whopper Sacrifice. What it promised was a free Whopper to anyone on Facebook who would “sacrifice” (ditch, dump, de-friend) 10 Facebook friends.
All you had to do, via the application, was tell Burger King which ten friends you were dumping and you received a coupon for a free Whopper. Your ten former friends then received notices that they were dumped (unlike normal Facebook “de-friending” which occurs without notification to the dumpee).
The idea itself caused a minor uproar, with some taking real offense to the less than amicable Burger King concept. Apparently, unloading 10 friends (whom you could quickly “re-friend” the next day) for a free burger is not just anti-social, it’s un-American and perhaps immoral as well.
The criticism became so pronounced that Burger King’s director of media and interactive, Tia Land, had to remind the world: “It’s all meant as tongue-in-cheek . . .”
Well, Facebook apparently did not get the humor. Because on January 15, the Facebookians disabled the application. (Although some say Burger King disabled it themselves after Facebook complained.)
Here was the official statement that appeared if you tried too late to access the application and get your free Whooper . . .
FACEBOOK HAS DISABLED WHOPPER SACRIFICE AFTER YOUR LOVE FOR THE WHOPPER SANDWICH PROVED TO BE STRONGER THAN 233,906 FRIENDSHIPS.
(The page announcing the disabled application also allowed you to send an Angry Gram to anyone who de-friended you. Nice touch.)
Why did Facebook shut it down? Ostensibly for privacy reasons: the application violated the privacy policy of the site. In their own words:
“This application facilitated activity that ran counter to user privacy by notifying people when a user removes a friend.”
Hmmmmm — pardon my skepticism. I think an equal issue was the fact that Facebook is about “connections,” not disconnects. The concept of the promotion ran counter to Facebook brand values.
Anyway, that’s the play-by-play. Here comes the color analysis.
Color Analysis
Among many who thought the promotion didn’t quite make it was a very smart colleague, Sam Fiorella, head of our interactive division, Tri-Media—DBC.
In Sam’s opinion, Burger King (and its agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky) did not really understand the “culture” of the chosen networking site (Facebook) and the dynamics of the network itself. In his opinion, “the campaign missed the latter, which caused the promotion to be shut down early – and lowered or killed the ROI for the client.”
Good point, Sam. Since the Burger King program was halted before it gave out its quoted supply of 25,000 Whooper coupons, it “lost out” on the full return for its investment in building/launching the application.
However, if you look at this from a word-of-mouth perspective, I thought the promotion succeeded beyond any reasonable measure.
Let’s do the math:
82,771 accessed the promotion – how many of them told lots of their friends that they were working on or got a free Whopper from BK for dropping Facebook friends?
233,906 friends were “dropped” — how many word-of-mouth conversations did that generate?
Now, how many of the people who heard about this from one of the two groups noted above went on to tell their friends who then told their friends about the promotion?
Next, how much additional word of mouth was generated from over 10+ Google pages of journalist articles on the promotion? (Note: The number of articles detailing the disabled application blows away the number that noted the promotion’s launch. BK got more press buzz from the takedown than it ever would have gotten from the original idea.)
Perhaps this whole crazy story may have appeared in a blog or two as well. (I’ll let someone else do the Technorati research.)
So, my math says BIG BIG ROI measured in pure buzz, online and offline.
Oh, and just in case you are wondering about the “negativity” of it all, don’t. The Facebook generation, I am quite sure, doesn’t take itself so seriously. In fact, one article quoted a friend-dumping Whopper winner named Emily Koster who ended her promotion-supporting comments with this thought: “The relationships will be easily reparable. Chances are, they’ll still be my friend on MySpace.”
Mike Diccicco (mdiccicco@dbcommunications.net) is president of Diccicco Battista Communications, a brand communications agency providing advertising, PR, media planning/buying, interactive and word-of-mouth marketing services. The agency is a member of WOMMA (www.womma.org).