Episode 104 - Burger King Burger Glitch Ad Reviewed By Mast-Jägermeister, GE Healthcare and NewDigitalAge
The gamer community is notoriously hard to appeal to, but Burger King make a compelling case with their Burger Glitch ad. On Advertisers Watching Ads this week, we’re reviewing the clip chosen by Contagious, made by Ogilvy, with guests Nanki Singh (Senior Brand Manager at Mast-Jägermeister SE), Mary Beth Sisti (Director, Web Strategy & Digital Experience at GE Healthcare) and Justin Pearse (Editor of NewDigitalAge and Co-Founder of Bluestripe Group).
This campaign was a strong push by Burger King to appeal to the gaming audience, but did it also work with other consumers? And what did it do for brand reputation?
Our advertisers marked it 4.6 out of 5 - See what you think!
Automated Transcript
Episode 104 - Burger King Burger Glitch Ad Reviewed By Mast-Jägermeister, GE Healthcare and NewDigitalAge
Tom Ollerton 00:00
Hello, and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. This is a weekly show where I am the lucky guy who gets to interview brands about what they think about other brands' ads. We are brought to you as ever by Contagious who helped us find the ad this week, so please go check those guys out after the show. But before we get to this week's ad, let's meet this week's guests.
Nanki Singh 00:27
Hi, I'm Nanki Singh. Senior Brand Manager for Jägermeister India and subcontinent.
Mary Beth Sisti 00:32
Hi, I'm Mary Beth Sisti. I'm the Director of Web Strategy and Experience at GE Healthcare.
Justin Pearse 00:37
And I'm Justin Pearse. I'm the Editor of the NewDigitalAge and Co-Founder of Bluestripe Group which clones that publication.
Tom Ollerton 00:44
What a fantastic panel! Okay, so would you eat a burger that looked like this? Why are Burger King messing with their core product? It's all a bit weird. Let's watch this week's ad to find out. It's voting time. So on count of three... One, two, three... A four, a four, and a five. That's a... That's a slam dunk for Burger King.
Justin Pearse 03:17
I lied. Actually, five.
Tom Ollerton 03:18
Five! Wow, that is gonna be hard to beat this year. So Justin, what are we seeing here? What is going on?
Justin Pearse 03:25
So I love the campaign because they went across every different sort of possible touchpoint that Burger King had with consumers, and it played out across the world. The press loves it. And obviously, these sort of campaigns kind of done for PR slash anything else and it got huge PR. The gaming audience is notoriously hard to reach. They're very protective. And they don't like people mucking around with them. But... By tying into idea of a glitch, which is something that's quite key in sort of gaming culture, it works really well. And you saw the reaction of people on social media who actually liked this campaign. So I think overall, the campaign was a pretty huge success.
Mary Beth Sisti 03:55
You know, the idea of finding a glitch in an app was really, actually intriguing. And I'm not even a gamer. And so I thought it was really smart. Sometimes you feel like they're doing like Mad Libs. And they're like, "Let's, you know, try to get people to download the app and we'll appeal to this group." But this actually really made sense and I think was more broadly appealing than they probably initially thought to.
Nanki Singh 04:18
It's just amazing how it connected not just with the gaming audience, but also with people, you know, who are not gamers. There was an element of surprise to people who are purchasing it, that there will be some glitch in the Whopper or in the sandwich. And the idea of finding something within the app, very engaging, definitely showed up with the results that they brought in terms of increase in downloads, so on and so forth.
Mary Beth Sisti 04:40
Honestly, if this had been available in the US, I would have downloaded the app after watching this ad just to go find glitches. You know, you want people to not just download the app once but come back to it. So that was also a great incentive.
Tom Ollerton 04:52
I felt the results were... generous, or am I missing the point?
Justin Pearse 04:56
I think it's a really good point. I would expect to see more downloads. As I said downloads is sort of the Holy Grail for so many brands. And this had a really good mechanics driver. So it was quite surprising to see. Yeah, I was surprised by the number of actual downloads. Consideration do, but downloads here are not so impressive.
Mary Beth Sisti 05:11
I also think that, you know, app engagement is different than just coupon engagement. So they were saving costs and labor costs and being able to plan their workforce better and do... cut some margins, too, by having people order ahead and have people prepare their food. And so there's that additional savings as well that they get through app engagement.
Tom Ollerton 05:31
The campaign talked about having a store in the Metaverse. Where? What was your feeling as a marketer when you saw that they'd had a Metaverse experience?
Nanki Singh 05:37
I think not a lot of people know what's happening in the Metaverse. Where is the store? Where is it? How do you access it? What happens there? What is the experience all about? If you're not able to touch, feel, experience it then what is it really doing for the brand? And for the gamer community, it would make sense because they would know what the experience is all about. They have kind of experienced some of it in the gaming zone. But for non-gamers, is that something which will really pull them? And do they really know where to go to experience it? And then from an experiential point of view on an on-ground thing, what do you really get out of it, has Burger King increased their sales because of it, like what really happens after that? I think that's something which will be interesting to understand.
Justin Pearse 06:22
All research points to the fact that gamers don't like adverts in games, but they do like authenticity. So I think that probably played quite well with the gaming audience. Again, this was a really strong push of Burger King to, to authentically appeal to the audience.
Tom Ollerton 06:34
Is this more in the line of cool digital crazy activations? But Is it actually helping the business?
Justin Pearse 06:39
I think it was clever campaign that used old fashioned mechanics like competitions, and money off, that sort of stuff, but put it in a modern world environment. And the environment people live in... People live on their phones, people live and win games, people will want to live with their mistress. So they just play into what consumers are doing. So I don't think it was a sort of crazy digital campaign at all.
Mary Beth Sisti 06:59
Yeah, I also think this app engagement piece, hugely important. And then the second piece is even if you're not someone that's a gamer, I think when you get these weird glitch meals, that's such social media fodder. I would share it. I think anyone would share that and then you see that on your socials, and you're like, "Oh, that's kind of weird. Like maybe, maybe I'll think of going to Burger King." So I think there's something more than just like a gimmick. There's a way to get people to actually go buy things.
Tom Ollerton 07:26
Do you think this is building the brand enough?
Nanki Singh 07:28
If you see the way Burger King works, they have done this, some very interesting things from time to time. Like, like, you know, right now getting into the gaming zone, they also did something with Bitcoin earlier. So it's nice to see how they keep reinventing themselves. And if it also translates into, you know, the kind of product that is and people coming back then that's great. Otherwise, it's just a gimmick.
Tom Ollerton 07:51
So Nanki, Mary Beth, Justin, thank you so much for your time.
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