Whopper Sacrifice
Whopper Sacrifice was a simple idea. We challenged Facebook users to "sacrifice" (publicly de-friend) 10 friends on Facebook to prove their love for the Whopper. Complete the task and earn a coupon for a free Whopper of your own. By the time the campaign ended, over 230,000 online relationships were severed due to the taste of our flame grilled burgers, press impressions skyrocketed to over 32M, and the campaign was awarded the Cannes Titanium Lion, Grand Clio, D&AD Yellow Pencil, and ADC Hybrid Cube.
We wanted to utilize social networks in a unique way. Instead of asking people to share with their friends, we asked them to challenge the very notion of friendship. If people like their friends but love the Whopper, could we convince them to leave one for the other?
To answer this question, we created the Whopper Sacrifice application. It worked like this: Sacrifice (delete) ten of your Facebook friends, and receive a free Whopper. There was one twist: Each friend you sacrificed would be notified of your actions, meaning your entire network would know that you love the Whopper more than your friends.
“Does Burger King’s Whopper Sacrifice go too far?”
On January 15th, the campaign was shut down by Facebook for violating it’s user agreement. It has been active for 10 days, dowloaded 82,700 times, and received 13M media impressions.
“‘Whopper Sacrifice’ De-Friended on Facebook”
Harnessing the power of collective frustration with Facebook, we released this message on Burger King’s page. The resulting public outcry caused media impressions to jump to 32 million and led Whopper Sacrifice to become one of the most successful and recognized social media campaigns of the decade.
