Burger King Misfired on Facebook Viral Campaign

This week I bring you with facts about the marketing campaigns taking place in Social networks. Specially Facebook. Successes, Failures, Legality among many others will be discussed.

      Starting is a failure - A place we all love in Slave Island - Sri Lanka - Burger King - 

Crispin Porter + Bogusky,  Burger King’s advertising firm, has created a Facebook application called "Whopper Sacrifice." The application is simple: drop 10 friends on Facebook and you’ll get a coupon for a free Whopper. The rejected friends then get an email letting them know they’ve been dropped for a free sandwich.

Why on earth would you create a viral marketing campaign centered on negativity? It’s the old comedy rule: Surprise the audience and stay positive. It’s always funnier.

A much better way to do this would be to create an application that would give away a free Burger King gift graphic, say an image of a Whopper, the King or the Burger King logo for example. When your friends are notified they got a BK gift from you they have an option to install the application too. Once you’ve given away 10 BK gifts to your friends you get a free Whopper coupon.

This type of approach does several things:

1. It’s positive - Facebook users love giving, and getting, free gifts
2. Those gifts on user’s profiles are ads that will be there for a long time
3. Many free Whopper coupons would be given out

By playing to what people like on Facebook you can create a viral campaign that is both popular and creates positive impression of your brand.


For info about Burger King Sri Lanka click on http://lankareviewed.blogspot.com/2008/09/chicken-shawarma-on-malay-st-mr-burger.html