#McWhopper Is Absolutely Brilliant Marketing

Burger King just unleashed one of the most awesome marketing campaigns and many people don’t even realize it.

If you’re not familiar with the McWhopper proposal, go here and read up.

Why is this so brilliant? For a few reasons, but first let’s just one thing clear. BK had to know there was no way in hell McDonald’s would accept this proposal. It takes corporations the size of McDonald’s an insanely long time to make any changes or additions to their menu items. Burger King knows this (and faces the same challenges), and knew that less than 30 days turnaround time was impossible.

This is brilliant because Burger King not only backed McDonald’s into a corner, but they covered their bases in a way that forced McDonald’s hand into leaving this lame response:

Dear Burger King,

Inspiration for a good cause… great idea.

We love the intention but think our two brands could do something bigger to make a difference.

We commit to raise awareness worldwide, perhaps you’ll join us in a meaningful global effort?

And every day, let’s acknowledge that between us there is simply a friendly business competition and certainly not the unequaled circumstances of the real pain and suffering of war.

We’ll be in touch.

-Steve, McDonald’s CEO

P.S. A simple phone call will do next time.

Weaksauce right? Burger King gave McDonald’s top billing by calling it the “McWhopper” and used every touchpoint to reinforce that they were willing to cooperate on all aspects of the execution. They also tied it to a charity to add a layer of “feel goodness” to it, which also helps to deflect criticism that they were just trying to call out McDonald’s for selfish reasons.

McWhopper was a win/win for Burger King. If McDonald’s accepted the proposal, they would’ve been the champion for bringing something this epic to life. By not accepting, Burger King looks a lot more favorable to McDonald’s customers, as evidenced by many of the responses on Facebook. The buzz on social media around McWhopper was the true end game here and Burger King’s advertising team must (and should) feel very good about themselves today.

The only bad thing about this whole campaign is that in the end, we the customer are the ultimate loser because a McWhopper sounds delicious.