Burger King CMO: Campaigns without creativity are just wallpaper

Industry Contributor 24 Jun 2019 - 2 min read

Burger King CMO: Campaigns without creativity are just wallpaper

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Tags: Burger King, mcdonald's, advertising, marketing, CMO

Burger King global CMO Fernando Machado says creative campaigns that link back to brand strategy underpin its shift from delivering billions of impressions – to billions of impressions that drive results (Marketing Week).

Key points

Burger King is winning awards – and selling more burgers
Whopper Detour won Direct Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Lions, and drove highest footfall in Burger King restaurants in 4.5 years
Also gained 1.5m app downloads in 10 days
Sales through app tripled
“We are not in the pursuit of random ideas. We’re in the pursuit of ideas that will link back to our business and brand strategy, which have clear targets and objectives,” - Fernando Machado
“Not all campaigns will do everything, but they should be doing something in the direction of the objectives you have.”
Campaigns without creativity become “wallpaper” that nobody notices

Burger King’s marketing has been on fire – literally – in recent years. And it’s helping to shift product; same store sales were up 2.2%, ahead of analysts expectations, per its most recent quarterlies.

Its continued attacks on McDonald’s customers and advertising (getting customers to ‘burn’ McDonald’s ads via an augmented reality app, offering them 1 cent burgers when they are within 600 feet of a McDonald’s via the Whopper Detour campaign) are both smart and funny. And must annoy the hell out of McDonald’s.

The creative approach also gives Burger King a much bigger bang for its marketing buck – people share its ads naturally, as Machedo notes, reducing reliance on paid channels. Meanwhile the app data - customer gold - feeds back into the marketing machine.

“The most successful brands,” he says, “manage to be relevant in pop culture, they manage to carve out a space in people’s minds, they make the strong stronger and they deliver a business result.”

More food for thought.