Burn The Ads, Roast The Competitor

Screenshot from promotional video on Clio Awards page

Burning Ads
Roasting took a whole new meaning with Burger King’s 2019 campaign, Burn That Ad. A combination of augmented reality (AR) and out-of-home (OOH) advertising, the campaign gave consumers the ability to burn competitors’ ads. Run in Brazil, consumers could download the Burger King AR app and when they pointed the app at a competitor’s ad, the ad burns to a crisp to be replaced by a coupon for a free Whopper. The roast was meant to point out how Burger King's patties are flame-grilled while McDonald's are cooked on a flat-top grill. (Burger King, 2019). The promotional video solely features McDonald's ads, and Burger King even uses McDonald's own slogan to roast them further, turning "i'm lovin it" into a "#i'mburnin'it". According to the video, McDonald's advertising budget is four times larger than Burger King's and so the only logical action was to burn their ads. (Burger King, 20219). The campaign sparked conversation on social media with users marvelling at the AR technology and how this would be the future of print ads. Users also loved the burning aspect and commended Burger King on a roast well done. 
The ad was highly successful resulting in 400,000 ads being burned and becoming the most downloaded app on the App Store. The ad was also the 2019 Clio Awards Bronze winner.

Source: Burger King from Clio Awards website

Why roast the competitor?
The fast-food industry is very competitive, which means brands need to get creative with how they advertise. Historically, strategies have used were related to one of seven different variables of the marketing mix: product, price, place, promotion, people, process, or physical experience (Shcerbakova, 2020). Traditionally, there are four variables in the marketing mix, also known as the 4Ps (product, price, place, promotion) but more variables were added to the list as marketers worked on different approaches to the marketing mix. (Shcerbakova, 2020). A combination of different promotion strategies yields better results than focusing on one or a couple of strategies (Shcerbakova, 2020). The strategy of roasting the competition can be characterized as comparative advertising with superiority claims. (Vrountas, 2020). From Wendy’s twitter beef to KFC’s creative campaigns brands in the fast-food industry need to use diverse marketing strategies to stand out from the competition. 

​All marketing is war, a heated competition between companies to gain more market share, and so emerges the brand calling out another brand strategy (O'Reilly, 2019, 7:00). Marketers have to be careful when pursuing this technique, termed comparative advertising, to ensure their strategy does not negatively reflect back on them or create a negative brand image. Using comparative advertising has a chance of picking a fight or looking like a bully, such as the political ads. (Vrountas, 2020) According to Statista, McDonald's had the most restaurant chains in Brazil in 2020, followed by Subway and then Burger King. (Associação Brasileira de Franchising, 2020). While Subway is also a quick-service restaurant, McDonald's is a more direct competitor, hence Burger King's decision to roast McDonald's instead. 

According to Instapage, there are a variety of factors where it makes sense for comparative advertising:

1. Customers can’ tell the difference between you and your rival
2. There’s a misconception about your brand as it relates to competitors

(Vrountas, 2020)
As well as some things to be wary of when using comparative advertising:
3 – Be ready to back it up
4 – Don’t pick on the little guy
5 – Keep it fun and innocent
6 – Be objective
7 – Compare something your consumers care about
(Vrountas, 2020)

Why do out-of-home advertising?
While billboards and bus shelters may seem like archaic forms of advertising now that smartphones and social media marketing are so dominant, however, OOH advertising is still effective. The advent of digital OOH (DOOH) advertising lets marketers up their OOH game. Not only can digital screens cover more areas than traditional OOH such as elevators, but DOOH also has animated images. (Inside Network, 2020). DOOH, unlike other digital ads, are unblockable and when designed correctly, can be eye-catching and interactive (Inside Network, 2020). DOOH also allows for more finer targeting than traditional OOH, although OOH is still a. strong medium for high visibility (Inside Network, 2020).  

Was it a tasteful roast?
Lucky for Burger King, one of the biggest risks with this campaign, roasting competitors, was shown to be acceptable and successful with consumers with Wendy’s Twitter roasts. Even without this reassurance, however, the campaign idea is creative and makes a statement in a comedic way while also promoting a superior product features. As mentioned before, the campaign was well-received on social media with many users marvelling at the technological innovation of using AR and the savageness of Burger King. Knowing your consumers is critical and Burger King ensured that the campaign would be well-received and generate conversation on social media – where a lot of their target consumers are. Burger King was also being quite devious by having consumers search for McDonald's ads only to use them to go to the competitor. As stated in the campaign video, the more McDonald's invested, the more Burger King burned. From a data standpoint, if consumers searched for online ads to burn it would also have created falsely inflated impressions for McDonald's ads and wasted their ad budget for search ads. Not only is Burger King the king of burgers but they're also the king of roasts. 

Screenshot from promotional video on Clio Awards page

Does comparative advertising make sense?
Going back to the factors that Instapage provided before:
​
1 – Customers can’ tell the difference between you and your rival
While the products are undifferentiated in the fast-food industry, the fast-food brands have developed recognizable brand identities to differentiate themselves. Wendy’s, for example, has made quite the sassy and savage identity through their Twitter account where they roast other brands (Dynel, 2020). The roasts became so popular that ordinary people asked to be roasted by Wendy’s Twitter. (Dynel, 2020). While there were some consumers who don’t appreciate Wendy’s humour, it succeeds due to the humour and acceptance from online community members. (Dynel, 2020). The creative tweets were actually a successful promotional strategy and made the brand very likeable. (Dynel, 2020). This campaign gives Burger King a distinct brand identity from McDonald's, and highlighting how a product feature, the flame-roasted patties, adds objectivity to support their roast. 

2 – There’s a misconception about your brand as it relates to competitors
If consumers have a false perception of your brand, now is the time to address it. (Vrountas, 2020)  Based on the campaign video, there seems to be a perception that because McDonald's has more advertisements, they have higher brand awareness and are more successful. Burger King addresses the perception with this campaign and that they focus more on product quality than advertising budget, hence their patties are superior to McDonald's. 

Was DOOH executed well?
One of the greatest disadvantages of DOOH is not being able to measure impressions, but having the OOH media connect with an app, Burger King solves that problem (Wlosik, 2021). The hashtag of #i'mburninit also brings the brand into the social media space, which generates a conversation about the campaign and organic traffic to the campaign as consumers see the hashtag trending through other users' non-paid posts.

What would I change?
Now it's time to roast Burger King and address some ares for improvement. This campaign was well-done and was both objective yet fun at the same time so it didn't cross the line of bullying McDonald's. I would have suggested expanding the campaign to roast other competitors as well, however Burger King's greatest competitor in Brazil is McDonald's. Attacking the smaller brands would not be an effective use of budget and has the potential to come off as bullying the little guy, something to avoid when doing comparative advertising. 
​
Vegetarians
Brazil is the world's largest meat exporters but the vegetarian population is rising, with the number of vegetarian having double in the last six years (Cipolla, 2021). Fuelled by a desire to condemn animal abuse, a survey found that 14% of Brazilians, approximately 30 million people, declared themselves vegetarians (Cipolla, 2021). While the campaign can still be enjoyable for vegetarian consumers, the Whopper is not vegetarian friendly and the flame-roasted patty was a big selling point of the campaign. Burger King faced backlash from consumers when they released their Impossible Whopper in America as the burger was not completely vegetarian since the Impossible patties are grilled on the same broiler as their meat products (Mettler, 2019). A modification to this campaign could have been an inclusion for vegetarians, possibly the consumer being presented with a choice between a free Whopper coupon or a coupon for a valid vegetarian option of around equal value. 

Source: Getty Images Stock taken from TODAY show article

Let me know what you think:
Do you prefer Wendy’s savage tweets or Burger King’s Burn That Ad?
Do you think comparative advertising is a strong marketing strategy?
Do you think OOH advertising is dying?

References
Associação Brasileira de Franchising. (March 3, 2021). Leading restaurant chains in Brazil in 2020, by number of units [Graph]. In Statista. Retrieved October 30, 2021, from https://www-statista-com.libaccess.lib.mcmaster.ca/statistics/812849/number-outlets-restaurant-chains-brazil/

Cipolla, A. (2021, Jan 5). Brazil, the world's largest meat exporter, has more and more vegetarians. Retrieved from https://latinamericanpost.com/35614-brazil-the-worlds-largest-meat-exporter-has-more-and-more-vegetarians

Clio Awards (2019). Burger King Burn That Ad. 
Retrieved from https://clios.com/awards/winner/direct/burger-king/burn-that-ad-71911

Dynel, M. (2020). On being roasted, toasted and burned: (Meta)pragmatics of Wendy's Twitter humour. Journal of Pragmatics. 166, 1-14. 
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378216620301120?via%3Dihub

Inside Network. (2020, Nov 6). What is Digital Out-of-home (DOOH) advertising? Programmatic and interactive. 
Retrieved from https://www.insidenetwork.com/what-is-digital-out-of-home-advertising-dooh/

Mettler, L. (2019, Aug 6). Why Burger King's Impossible Whopper and breakfast sandwich aren't vegetarian. Retrieved from https://www.today.com/food/new-burger-king-impossible-whopper-isn-t-vegetarian-t160203

O'Reilly, T. (Host).  (2019, April 24). When Bands Mock Other Brands (S3E24) [Audio podcast episode]. In Under the Influence. CBC Radio. Podcast retrieved from 
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-70-under-the-influence/clip/15791706-s3e24-archive-when-brands-mock-other-brands

Shcherbakova, E. (2020). Importance of Diversified Marketing Strategies for Fast Food Restaurant Chains. Westcliff International Journal of Applied Research. 4, 72-77. 
https://doi.org/10.47670/wuwijar202041ES

Vroutas, T. (2020, April 15). Comparative Advertising: The Legality, When to Use It & Best Practices for Optimal Campaign Results (Examples). Retrieved from https://instapage.com/blog/comparative-advertising

Wlosik, M. (2021, June 14). What is Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) Advertising and How Does It Work?. Retrieved from https://clearcode.cc/blog/what-is-digital-out-of-home-dooh/#dooh-viewability-is-currently-harder-to-measure-than-online-advertising