Traditional Advertising Fail! Burger King & Facebook Win!

At 9:29am today Cnet reported that Burger King’s new Facebook marketing campaign has been launched and is quite witty.

Burger King created a Facebook application called Whopper Sacrifice wherein if you install their APP, then delete 10 of your Facebook friends, you get a coupon for a free Whopper.

Already by 8am though, BurgerKing Sacrificial Virgins Group had been set up for the sole purpose of friending and unfriending strangers. Brilliant! No messing with real friends!

Burger King still wins though because you have to have their Facebook APP on your profile to work, so they are still raising their brand awareness and handing out coupons to a community 150,000,000 strong!

It’s no wonder that big companies are leaving newspapers and newspaper websites, newspapers just do not enable businesses to participate on this level with their community (or lack thereof). I stand by my statement that display advertising fails online and is replaced by better ways to connect business and customers.

I’m off to get my Whopper!

UPDATES:
Facebook’s valuation (in Whoppers) -from Kottke.org
$12/user X 150M users = $1.8 billion valuation for Facebook

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One thought on “Traditional Advertising Fail! Burger King & Facebook Win!

  1. Robert,

    Are you telling us you sacrificed ten of your Facebook friends for a Whopper? Not a bad idea, I may do likewise, can always add them again at another time.