BURGER KING competitor’s mascot – Ronald McDonald – happens to be a clown. So when we realized that the most famous horror clown of all time – Pennywise from Stephen King’s “IT” – would return to theatres in September 2017, we saw an opportunity to draw people away from McDonald’s, reminding them of what we knew all along: clowns are not to be trusted. So we hijacked the horror film of the year and turned it into BURGER KING’s longest ad ever. Becoming the first brand with an in-cinema ad in feature-length.
Creative Execution
On the evening of the German pre-premiere of Stephen King´s horror classic “IT”, we let the clown spread fear and horror until the audience had enough. Right when the credits were about to roll, we hijacked the movie with two powerful spotlights to project our message onto the silver screen. Turning the horror movie of the year into the worlds longest in-cinema ad. In addition, our stunt warned the audience and everyone else who watched our viral video later about creepy clowns. And thereby indirectly about our biggest competitor – without naming them once.
Within just 72 hours, our stunt achieved over 900 million impressions and press coverage in 5 continents, earning 10 million euros in media value. On social media, the online film generated over 12 million impressions making it BURGER KING Germany’s most liked, shared and commented ad to date. And additionally the worlds first multi-million dollar ad that the brand didn’t pay for.
Always in second place on the fast food market, BURGER KING is constantly looking for innovative ways to win over their rivals’ customers without increasing their media budget. With our LOVING “IT” stunt we produced our own ad – one the brand did not pay for. By turning a whole horror movie into one long ad, we created a new form of in-cinema advertising. And the worlds longest BURGER KING ad ever, which was covered in nearly every medium.
Insights, Strategy and the Idea
We wanted to use a cost efficient stunt that calls on our male, horror- and burger-loving target group to push back against our main competitor and their iconic clown. And we wanted to keep it in BURGER KING’s usual bold tone. The perfect opportunity: The release of “IT”, a horror movie that equaled a pop culture event this year and was highly anticipated by our target audience.