So apparently you can get in trouble for virtual human sacrifices as well as real ones. Just a week after the launch of Whopper Sacrifice, Burger King has been forced to alter a key element of the wildly successful Facebook app. During the last week, the app was used by 82,000 people to delete over 230,000 friendships on Facebook. Sacrificing at least 10 friends secured a coupon for a free Whopper at Burger King.
Facebook has claimed that the app's method of notifying the friends being deleted that they are being sacrificed is a privacy violation and runs counter to the interests of the users. Something about that argument sounds as funky to me as last Wednesday's french fry grease. Facebook may welcome with open arms an application that strengthens the network between its users and prompts increased use and page views, but it looks to me like they don't want anybody influencing their users to cut back at all.
I doubt we've heard the last of this one. You don't mess with the King, and you don't taunt someone who already markets an "Angry Whopper"
Showing posts with label social marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social marketing. Show all posts
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Whopper Sacrifice - Social Marketing Gets Vicious
OK, this is the most unique social networking campaign I think I've ever seen. Whopper Sacrifice is the latest, greatest thing from Burger King designed to get under our skin and into our consciousness. They've created a Facebook application that bribes consumers to delete 10 of their friends from Facebook in exchange for a free Whopper.
It's a work of evil genius! First, they offer up a Faustian deal, with a tempting free meal weighed against your loyalty to people you've publicly linked yourself to. Then, if you succumb to the temptation, they broadcast your betrayals through your Wall. And once you've sacrificed one, two, five friends, are you really going to stop before you get the burger? No way! You're too far in. The Whopper Sacrifice must continue.
Finally, when you've made your deal with the King [of darkness], can you honestly say that you won't be thinking about what you've done with a slight taste of guilt in your mouth as you eat your free Whopper? And when the deed is done, and the crimson ketchup is all over your hands...
"Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!—One; two: why, then 'tis time to do't.—Hell is murky." - William Shakespeare
It's a work of evil genius! First, they offer up a Faustian deal, with a tempting free meal weighed against your loyalty to people you've publicly linked yourself to. Then, if you succumb to the temptation, they broadcast your betrayals through your Wall. And once you've sacrificed one, two, five friends, are you really going to stop before you get the burger? No way! You're too far in. The Whopper Sacrifice must continue.
Finally, when you've made your deal with the King [of darkness], can you honestly say that you won't be thinking about what you've done with a slight taste of guilt in your mouth as you eat your free Whopper? And when the deed is done, and the crimson ketchup is all over your hands...
"Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!—One; two: why, then 'tis time to do't.—Hell is murky." - William Shakespeare
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