WHOPPER GATE

Short List
TitleWHOPPER GATE
BrandBURGER KING BELGIUM
Product/ServiceBURGER KING BELGIUM
Category E03. Real-Time Response
Entrant BUZZMAN Paris, FRANCE
Idea Creation BUZZMAN Paris, FRANCE
Production BUZZMAN Paris, FRANCE
Production 2 NEUVIÈME PAGE Paris, FRANCE
Credits
Name Company Position
Kevin Derycke BURGER KING® BELGIUM CEO
Dirk Lammens BURGER KING® BELGIUM Marketing Director
Raphaël Duvivier BURGER KING® BELGIUM Business Development
Vic Dresen BURGER KING® BELGIUM Brand Director
Georges Mohammed- Chérif BUZZMAN President and Executive Creative Director
Thomas Granger BUZZMAN Vice-President
Julien Levilain BUZZMAN Managing Director
Louis Audard BUZZMAN Creative Director
Tristan Daltroff BUZZMAN Creative Director
Louis Audard BUZZMAN Artistic Director
Tristan Daltroff BUZZMAN Copywriter
Xavier Devaux Landragin BUZZMAN Account Director
Valentin Allard BUZZMAN Account Executive Assistant
François Phan  BUZZMAN Head of Digital & Innovation
Christelle Pereira BUZZMAN Digital Production
Tony Tran BUZZMAN Digital Artistic Director & Ilustrator
Théo Berdrin BUZZMAN Motion Designer
Neuvième Page Neuvième Page Digital Studio
Vanessa Barbel BUZZMAN Head of TV Production
Benoît Crouet BUZZMAN TV & Print Production
Julien Scaglione BUZZMAN Head of Social Media
Alexandre Ponte BUZZMAN Social Media Manager
AMELIE JUILLET BUZZMAN Head of PR & Communication
Victoria Morin BUZZMAN PR & Communication Assistant
Kenza Bennani BUZZMAN PR & Communication Assistant

The Campaign

We created a simple voting website. When people arrived on the site, it urged them to elect the true King of the land. They had to choose between King Philippe and Burger King. If people tried to vote for Philippe, there were a few jokes to try to dissuade them. The site is visible here : http://whostheking.neuviemepage.com/ And when the Palace reacted (what we actually had dreamed of), we had to be quick. We were hoping they would react, but we didn't think they'd be that mad. So we had to make things right, and we decided to abdicate by removing the "KING" in our logo.

Creative Execution

As Burger King is a major player on Social Media, we used this to promote the website. We decided to launch it a month before the first opening. The link was posted on their Facebook page and their Twitter account, along with a press release. We also used wild postering to promote the campaign with funny words and a link to the website. Then, when the Palace reacted, we had to act fast. And two days later, we issued another press release and posted the "new logo" on our Facebook & Twitter. But we knew this wasn't sufficient, so we put the new logo everywhere we could, including a few local ads and the construction panels on the coming restaurants.

More than 1 billion impressions (we lost count of the PR releases, there were articles in major newspapers all across Europe, the USA, in India, in Saudi Arabia, Israel, Japan...) One of the most successful openings in Europe, as the kitchen was out of food by 8pm.

We had one goal, and one goal only : go viral. We knew this would have to be a PR coup, we didn't have any budget to launch a huge campaign. The operation was for everyone, every Belgian, as we just wanted to pass the message : Burger King is coming. The message was willingly broad, no specifics needed. Every canal was relevant.