Innovation is the lifeblood of the fast-food industry. From menu to store to online, fast-food brands seek ways to enhance or redefine their customer experience in order to not just remain competitive with each other, but also relevant to consumers. And the latest battleground is on customers’ smartphones, because by 2020, mobile ordering is poised to generate $38 billion in sales.

Late to the game, Burger King was re-launching its app with order-ahead functionality and we needed a bold idea that would encourage people to download it. So, we didn’t just do a promo, nor did we simply troll McDonald’s. We turned 14,000 McDonald's restaurants into our own, inviting consumers to order a 1-cent Whopper that could only be ordered “at” McDonald’s through the new BK App.

The Whopper Detour was a 9-day mobile app promotion by Burger King, running 12/04/18 to 12/12/18. The offer was available nationwide in the U.S. (not valid in Alaska and Hawaii) at participating BK restaurants and it unlocked at over 14,000 geofenced McDonald’s restaurants.

If a user was within 600 ft. of a McDonald’s, the BK App unlocked the promotion, and once the order was placed, the app then navigated them to the nearest BK for pickup. It was a mind twist that had to be perfectly executed to keep the user experience seamless so that consumers could join in on the fun.

We primarily leveraged social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram); targeted digital display through Foursquare and Waze; and high-impact traditional placements with guerrilla OOH and a New York Post full-page print ad.

During the 9-day promotion, The Whopper Detour garnered 3.5 billion impressions, an 818% increase in Twitter mentions for the brand, and $40 million in earned media. The app was downloaded 1.5 million times and ranked #1 on both iOS and Google Play app stores for several days, beating out the likes of Facebook, Amazon, YouTube, and Instagram. The PR success translated into business results: Burger King saw the highest foot traffic in over 4 years. Despite the fact that Whopper sandwiches were going for only a penny, the total sales value sold through the mobile app increased by 3x during the promotion and has doubled ever since, a result 40x bigger than BK’s historical digital promo record. Overall, the campaign yielded an ROI of 37:1. The 33% increase in mobile customer base also brought a $15 million increase in projected sales for the following year.