Tuesday, January 6

Friendship is Strong, But the Whopper is Stronger

Damn Burger King is good. Just when you think they are getting lame (try the tired Madlibs microsite = Whopper Angry-Gram), they come up with something brilliant.

Such as the only banner that I have ever clicked on Facebook. It is for their new Facebook effort = Whopper Sacrifice. Basically if you "unfriend" 10 of your Facebook Friends, then they reward you with a free Whopper coupon.

Which captures the newest social network marketing trend = rewarding consumers for acting virally.

Kraft recently launched a Facebook widget to support their social cause "Feeding America." To help drive viral spread of the application, Kraft donates six meals to hungry families for each friend users convince to add the application. It added over 26,000 users in December, which is fairly good for a branded widget. Facebook users can participate here:
http://apps.facebook.com/kraft_feedingamerica/

Burger King, however, approaches it from a downright aggressive approach. When you usually unfriend someone on Facebook they are not notified. They could go days or weeks before realizing that they are no longer on your friend list. Unfriend them via Burger King's page and it actually notifies your ex-friends that they have been delisted. To add insult to injury, it also reveals that it only took a free Whopper coupon to persuade you to make that decision.

Of course, it also invites them to sacrifice 10 of their friends, thus encouraging the viral spread.

The assumption is that you have at least 10 people on your friend list who you don't really know, or who are so far removed from your actual social interactions that unfriending them would not have impact on your offline (er, I mean "real") world. But, as this great article from Wired on "never-ending Friending" points out, even unfriending complete strangers can be a tough decision.

Can you identify your bottom 10 friends?



6 comments:

joie said...

that is the most awesome idea ever. tweeted it, hope you don't mind.

Anonymous said...

Brilliant way to play with functionality that's already there. I don't even ear Whoppers but I'd do this. Plus it's giving Whoppers a certain status in your life by saying, "sorry dude, this whopper is more important than you. Hope you Understand."

Just great.

Anonymous said...

Doing it to friends who you know WOULD notice is much more fun though. :)

Anonymous said...

Unfriending can be a tough decision, even when you don't really know someone, but I think that's why it was smart of Burger King to reward the action. That way, if someone takes offense, you have an excuse, and calling it a 'sacrifice' definitely takes some of the edge off.

http://thefutureofads.com/2009/01/09/burger-king-lets-people-sacrifice-friendships-for-whoppers/

wife of crabby sand crab said...

Oh, dear! Now I must wonder whether you approved my friendship only in order to "sacrifice" me for 1/10 of a Whopper. I do love a good flame-broiled sandwich but STILL!

Anonymous said...

just had a whopper, jr today and in these economic times, I'd unfriend quite a few people I was just being nice to and allowed them into my facebook friend file.