By Jamie Tolentino-Deludet
Many people queued up for this session as the line extended to different floors of the Palais I. The Lumiere theatre was packed and ready for Fernando Machado, Global CMO of Burger King, and Marcelo Pascoa, Head of Global Marketing at Burger King, as they talked about how the brand continues to reinvent itself through design, technology, and product innovation. It was all wrapped up on what really matters: Creativity.
Fernando Machado shared that they previously didn’t have a lot of budget for the project, so the product looked like a dog’s breakfast. A revamped visual identity and restaurant pushed revenues up by 12%. Marcelo Pascoa said they made flame-grilled burgers because 60% of people prefer flame-grilled rather than flat top burgers. However, no one knew about them so they redesigned the broiler ad to flaunt their BBQ experience. When they did, sales grew by 8%.
Fast food has been always about convenience, and technology is convenient. This manifests in self-service kiosks, mobile delivery, and whatnot. However, mobile ordering and payments are everywhere so creativity has to be manifested in order to drive engagement.
So how do you stand out in mobile promotions? Burger King asked their consumers to download their app and unlock the 1 penny promotion for a Whopper in a McDonald’s store as part of their Whopper Detour campaign. This drove engagement through the roof because it was fun to be ironic. They shared that previously, Burger King tried giving the Whopper away for free but no one downloaded their mobile app back then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6uuEQmn5vQ
Meanwhile, the Traffic Jam Whopper drove a 44% increase in mobile app downloads in Mexico. Burger King identified traffic jam locks and customers that are within a 3km radius of a store and delivered to them. With GPS and Google maps API, the routes for the delivery drivers were made dynamic which enabled the drivers to deliver to the customer whilst stuck in the traffic jam.
Fernando Machado said that the common thread about all these ads are that they are not typical. Some people will complain about your ads but that is okay. He also believes that your product should be good so they are working hard to clean up the product. They not only removed 750 tons of artificial colors, but also went further by creating a new product called the Impossible Whopper that is completely vegan but tastes exactly like it’s meat counterpart.
So what are their top five tips for surviving the “apocalypse”?
- Design your way through. Good design costs as much as bad design.
- Doing is better than saying
- New monsters, New weapons. Embrace technology.
- Love your product – if you don’t love it, change it!
- Get out! If you are not in the right place, move on.
