In its new Whopper Freakout online and TV ad campaign, Burger King is successfully driving customer loyalty by depriving customers of its flagship burger, the Whopper.
Coinciding with the Whopper's 50th anniversary, the ads showed what happened at two Burger King outlets in Nevada when customers were told the Whopper had been taken off the menu. Among the stunned remarks by scores of patrons were, "What are you going to put on the logo now -- home of the 'Whatever we got'?" Another customer exclaimed, "What, that is your thing though...Oh my God."
Some customers were given burgers from rivals such as McDonald's and Wendy's. Irate customers ended up returning the burgers, sometimes disparaging the competing brand. "I hate McDonald's," said a young male consumer.
Since kicking off on December 9, the video has been played 3.3 million times on whopperfreakout.com, and has had 357,367 views on YouTube. Burger King credits the campaign for helping boost Whopper sales in the quarter that ended up in December by a double-digit percentage.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the videotaped hoax was a twist on a market research technique called "deprivation research" in which marketers measure how loyal consumers are to a brand or product by taking it away from them. Dunkin' Donuts two years ago forced a group of its customers to drink Starbucks coffee for a week. Verizon Wireless had a group of teens give up using cellphones for a weekend.
"It's a great tool to understand what role a product plays in peoples lives," Lesley Bielby, chief strategy officer at Interpublic Group's Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, who helped conduct the research for Dunkin' Donuts and Verizon, told The Journal.
Burger King in the past has deprived loyal customers of Whoppers and analyzed what participants ate instead. Still, experts say it's rare for the method to be used in actual consumer advertising.
Russ Klein, the chain's chief marketing officer, says he conducts such research because fast-food customers are "promiscuous" when it comes to food choices, and deprivation research sheds insight into customer loyalty.
"While our core customers frequent Burger King five times a month, they frequent other fast-food restaurants 11 times a month," he told The Journal.
Discussion Questions: Why do you think "Whopper Freakout" has been such a hit? What do you think of the value of deprivation research as a marketing tool, as well as its use in a commercial? Can many brands capitalize on this method?