CASE STUDY: Burger King's Wallet Drop guerilla stunt creates online buzz in Singapore

Background

In June 2010, Burger King Singapore launched BK affordables - a guerilla marketing campaign which explored various traditional advertising platforms such as MRT trains, bus shelters and other forms of print ads. 

In line with the BK affordables campaign, Burger King launched a 'Wallet Drop' initiative which spanned across the past six weekends from 5 June to 10 July. The campaign, which targeted consumers between the ages of 16 and 29, proved to generate much online hype and buzz amongst Singaporeans.

Aim

BK affordables was launched to announce that meals from Burger King were so affordable that it seemed like the food chain was putting money back into consumers' wallets with the savings earned. This is where the 'Wallet Drop' campaign came into the picture.

Execution

The 'Wallet Drop' saw Burger King staff dropping wallets containing nearly S$40 worth of vouchers and discount offers at unusual locations from benches to clothes racks and display cabinets in various venues around Singapore, such as Raffles City, Tampines Mall, IMM and even education institutions such as MDIS Campus and Temasek Polytechnic. The content of the wallets also included lucky draw tickets for chances to win S$50 cash. The seemingly simple campaign which took place offline in turn sparked off an overwhelming online response.

The following Google graph shows corresponding spikes (by almost 50 per cent) in local search volume over weekends when a total of 1,200 wallet drops occured. Burger King also communicated with their customers via Facebook where they gave hints on the wallet drop sites. Photos and video testimonies of ecstatic 'victims' of the Wallet Drop were plastered on the site which generated further interest in the campaign.

A Google Insights for Search query for "Burger King" in Singapore produced this search graph (Jun 2010 - Jul 2010).

Results

Testifying the success of Burger King Singapore's latest campaign is the increased demand for the Burger King affordables - where two out of five customers ordered a Burger King affordables meal during the campaign period.

There was also a 600 per cent explosion in Burger King Singapore's Facebook 'like' counts which sky rocketed from 1,200 at the beginning of June, to reach 8,400 fans by early July.

To top it off, Burger King also continued to enjoy a sustained demand for the Burger King affordables as well as the Taro Turnover (which was given away free as part of the meal) after the promotion period, showing that an ostensibly simple yet highly creative offline campaign managed to sustain online buzz and actual in-store sales long after it ended.

Credits:

Client Burger King
Campaign name BK a4dables/ BK "Wallet drop" campaign
PR agency Word Of Mouth Communications
Creative agency Word Of Mouth Communications
Account director Jansen Siak
Social media agency Word of Mouth Communications