Title	BURGER KING FRANCE - BURGER KING & FRIENDS
Brand	BURGER KING FRANCE
Product/Service	FAST FOOD
Category	B03. Real-time Response
Entrant	BUZZMAN Paris, FRANCE
Idea Creation	BUZZMAN Paris, FRANCE

Name	Company	Position
Georges Mohammed-Chérif	Buzzman	President & Executive Creative Director
Thomas Granger	Buzzman	Vice - President
Julien Levilain	Buzzman	Managing Director
Philippe Boucheron	Buzzman	Creative Director
Patrice Lucet	Buzzman	Creative Director
Philippe Boucheron	Buzzman	Art Director
Patrice Lucet	Buzzman	Copywriter
Mona Saleh	Buzzman	Art Director Assistant
Victorine Ronzon-Jaricot	Buzzman	Art Director Assistant
Antoine Blondet	Buzzman	Social Media Art Director
Julien Moulin	Buzzman	Social Media Copywriter
Loïc Coelho	Buzzman	Head of Account
Fany Maupou	Buzzman	Account Executive
Julien Scaglione	Buzzman	Head of Social Media
Félix Brunot	Buzzman	Social Media Consultant
Arnaud Cherbonnier	Buzzman	Social Media Consultant
Clément Scherrer	Buzzman	Head of Strategic Planning
Amélie Juillet	Buzzman	Head of PR & Communication
Paul Renaudineau	Buzzman	PR & Communication Manager

Why is this work relevant for PR?

Because we built an involving strategy to engage the French people into our united initiative to support the entire food service industry. We bet on a provocative creative approach asking people to order from McDonald’s to get people’s attention and deliver our real supportive message to the sector and ask for people’s help. We then went further and used all our means (audience, social networks, digital owned medias, delivery box, PR) to offer our fellows’ restaurateurs some visibility until they could reopen. A generous initiative that moved everyone in the difficult times we know.

Background

October 2020: 2nd lockdown in France. A new hard blow for the restaurants that, after months of real difficulties, had to close again. Some of them won't get by. Despite the fact we were also suffering from this crisis, we wondered: how can we be useful and helpful as a big brand in such a dramatic context? How can we use our attention and creativity to get the French people attention on the terrible situation the entire food service industry is knowing for months and ask them for help?

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

The creative idea behind our 2 actions (“Order from McDonald’s” and “Whopper and Friends”) was to put our "competition" aside for once and, while everyone was expecting for a new attack on our biggest competitor, we took everyone aback by showing some support and kindness to the entire food service industry. Our actions aimed to get people’s attention our the dramatic situation our sector is knowing, ask them for help and play our role as a big and powerful brand to offer to some restaurants (especially to the small and local ones that can’t afford having advertising) some visibility.

Describe the PR strategy (30% of vote)

There is something “interesting” in this difficult period we know for a year: we are all in the same boat. We all have the same difficulties, we all miss the same things from our past life and we all are sensitive to the difficulties that a lot of industries and companies are having because of the crisis. We used that global sensibility to talk to the entire country, not just our fans/consumers, but every French people to highlight them the dramatic situation that thousands of restaurants are knowing and ask them for help. To reach the largest audience possible, we bet on a surprising creative approach (mentioning our biggest competitor) and engaging media strategy involving the biggest newspapers of the country and all our social networks to create discussions around our initiative and get everyone who needed it a chance to get some visibility.

Describe the PR execution (20% of vote)

1. November 1st, the day after the closing of all the restaurants in the country. We published a surprising print in the French biggest newspappers asking people to order from… McDonald's. From them but also from KFC, Quick, or Chez Michel, Bistrot basque... and all the other small independent restaurants we couldn't name in one print because all of them really need people's help (and orders) to survive. An invitation relayed on Burger King France social networks but also in 20 other countries where the brand is established. 2. December 10th, we decided to go further and turned our previous invitation into action by dedicating our Instagram account (posts and stories) and its 365K followers exclusively to the promotion of other restaurants until they could reopen. To participate, all the restaurant owners had to do was to post a picture of their signature dish on Instagram with the hashtag #WhopperAndFriends.

List the results (30% of vote)

These 2 actions truly allowed to highlight all the people involved in the restauration sector and engage the French people in their rescue. Together and thanks to the relay in 20 other countries where Burger King is established, our actions reached over 17.7 billion impressions and generated more than 1350 articles and more than 3.2 millions interactions on the Burger King’s posts around the world. But the greatest reward obviously comes from the restaurants we’ve directly promoted on our Instagram accounts (France + 7 other countries). The +3000 restaurants we promoted observed an average increase of sales of 18% in the month following their publication. Besides these tremendous results, we were also particularly moved by the rush of generosity that these actions generated, by discovering hundreds of tributes / memes / initiatives in other sectors that also were impacted (event, cinema, shops…) in order to thank and support their profession.