Burger King, through their insanely creative advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky (see their recent Burger King perfume launch), launches a Facebook application that encourages users to remove Facebook friends. Sacrifice ten of them and you got a free Whopper. 233,906 friends were removed by 82,771 people in less than a week.
Facebook is overjoyed, right? What a great example to show the Madison Avenue agencies on how a big brand can get real engagement from users. This is the future of advertising. Or it could have been, if Facebook hadn’t shut it down, citing privacy issues:
We encourage creativity from developers and brands using Facebook Platform, but we also must ensure that applications follow users’ expectations of privacy. This application facilitated activity that ran counter to user privacy by notifying people when a user removes a friend. We have reached out to the developer with suggested solutions. In the meantime, we are taking the necessary steps to assure the trust users have established on Facebook is maintained.
Did anyone talk to the sales department before pulling the trigger on this? All that happened is the user being dissed got a message telling them, which helps the application spread virally. Without that feature the app is far less powerful. There is no real privacy issue here, just a policy decision by Facebook that people shouldn’t be notified when you remove them as a friend.
Facebook consistently tell users they can’t do things in the name of privacy, despite the fact that those users know full well what they are up to.
Unless investor and partner Microsoft makes them do it, of course.
Brilliant campaign
well it worked out good for both sides. one side got a free whooper the other side got information that they werent really friends with that person who deleted them.
btw facebook sucks
http://kisalt.net/d2
If privacy is the issue, a minor fix of notifications should circumvent it. But that may affect its viral growth..
I think the privacy excuse is bogus. It’s no different than first sending a message and then unfriending. I suspect the real reason facebook didn’t like it was because hundreds of thousands of friend connections were removed and that hurts their network! Actually I can’t blame them but they should be honest about the real reason they stopped the app.
I think this is a great case study regarding how little value there really is in “Friends” made by Facebook and other social media networks. I am surprised the number isn’t bigger!
Jon
http://2xStocks.com
Doubling my money, one stock at a time
ah…you right
CPB: You really are way to good at what you do. The best part is you probably knew Facebook would ban you, TechCrunch would write about you…and tomorrow…probably the NYTIMES, Ad Age etc.
We’re all just pawns in your little game of flipping burgers for the King. Can you work the same magic with Microsoft? That creative has been…1.0?
I also thought this campaign was clever as who doesn’t have token friends that they would exchange for a Whopper
Not only was the campaign itself brilliant, but their response to the Facebook shut-down was smart (and quick) as well. By throwing up the splash screen to show that the app itself had been sacrificed, they were able to start new discussions/debates about privacy, brands interacting with Facebook, the value of friends on Facebook, etc (such as this post). It’s all just extra free publicity for them, and well deserved.
http://thefutur...s-for-whoppers/
Who runs Facebook again? Oh right a kid does. Seriously Facebook needs adult supervision just like what Google needed.
Since when was Google run by kids?
Didn’t Mark Z win some award..about the best CEO..seems like the kid is doing alright and I agree with this. It can cause problems when people remove you as friends. Backlash. Angry emails and hurt feelings..
LOL, that award is worthless. it was given to him strictly due to FB’s popularity, not because he’s particularly brilliant at managing a company. The Crunchies mean jack-shit in the real world.
It is time that FB is run by someone who has some business experience.
Satyam was given International award for corporate governance for 2008, a few weeks before their stock tanked 90% due to corporate governance issues.
Industry Awards mean s**t
What matters more than the users opinion?
You all are jealous..it is sad to see. Facebook has enough revenue to continue to grow. They don’t need to sell there souls like yahoo or make their site annoying like youtube has with popup video ads. They are doing things right and if you think for a moment facebook can’t make money…you are an idiot…
Last thing Facebook needs is a suit…why do you think yahoo’s choice was so bad? Facebook feels young and hip tp the majority of the public…yahoo feels old…done…on its last legs
I definitely don’t agree with many of the decisions of Zuckerberg, but your blanketing statement is pretty kiddish itself.
Facebook has gotten better but yeah, a little adult supervision may be in order here
I completely agree with facebook’s decision; this is a genuine privacy issue.
Facebook would only be violating privacy if it informed users who deleted them in a regular setting, which it does not. This application is for fun and to get people talking which wouldn’t have the same affect if deletes were anonymous. I think it is hilarious
like to be
Wow. Finally, a Facebook application worth talking about. Well done Burger King
Either way Burger King (actually Crispin Porter + Bogusky) wins BIG. First, the app makes a lot of news (or noise) and now shutting it down creates more noise.
I think the agency expected such a move and the resulting promotion.
It was a brilliant campaign where you win if you win and win if you fail
Cheers,
Raj
So, this policy thing allowed Burger King to get even more publicity and less whoppers given out for free. Very good campaign!
yup
But.. do I want to eat more Whoppers now than before I read this message… Hardly doubt that…
However… it IS lunchtime here in Europe…
Or – Facebook was pissed that facebookers were really willing to dump friends from their network for a sandwich. And since friends/connections are the only way the community survives Burger King was going to systematically destroy their entire platform one Whopper at a time.
Privacy issues is a cover. Facebook just needed to plug the leak before the dam collapsed.
I think what this shows is just how little value Facebook actually has. Users really derive very little from each other, in some cases users are worth less than $0.10.
Actually, it would be interesting if MySpace or another competitor just created a Facebook application that gave you $0.10 to delete friends. Outside of your core group of friends, most of the people you list as friends on Facebook are worthless.
Agreed – most of my friends are 10 cent friends.
Well, not really. Most of them that are listed on Facebook, I have a ton of other ways to communicate with them, so the network itself really holds little value, no matter how much value the friends have.
There are a couple groups on there that are almost my only way of communicating with the individual members so those do hold a decent value.
Most likely a lot of people emailed their friends and said that they’d re-add them after they’d scored their free burger. It doesn’t invalidate Facebook, it just goes to show that taking five minutes to delete and re-add ten friends is equal to the value of one hamburger. Not much of a social experiment there.
myspace doesn’t tell you when someone deletes you and facebook doesn’t tell you when someone deletes you.
while i think the decision *was* short-sighted, i really think facebook believes this was a privacy issue. some study somewhere said that broken hearted people aren’t going to click around your app, and if you tell someone that someone else doesn’t like them, they get broken hearted.
what irks me, is that this is really a psuedo privacy issue… i mean, who is really reading up on the info you agree to give away when you sign up for these apps? does everyone who has their email and phone number and address on their facebook account really understand what burger king or mobsters or iLike or joe the programmer and his iron maiden app is doing with that info? that is the privacy issue i would like to see facebook worrying over…
Yay, first time that I wrote about something cool before Mike did, ha!
I’m not sure about this campaign though… It surely creates a lot of attention, but image wise it might as well backfire…
I think its a great campaign but the users that get deleted shouldn’t be informed so.
well it worked out good for both sides. one side got a free whooper the other side got information that they werent really friends with that person who deleted them.
btw facebook sucks
What’s the big difference from being removed as a friend notification then to all the thousands of other notifications that FB sends out. I think it was a smart and clever campaign. It got buzz and a lot of people talking.
Plus I’m sure that this is a good benefit to Facebook users because not everyone adding you is really your friend on FB. i’m sure no one knows over 1000 people that deep
wow – so ballsy by bk, but such a cool idea…
scott
http://www.solarfeeds.com
I’m used to seeing big business not understanding social media, not the other way around.
Matt
Ditto on the idea that this is a great campaign -kudos to the brains behind it! Maybe Nancy Pelosi and the intern or colleagues that thought up the Cats youtube video should have waited and learned a few tricks.
Great campaign!
Did you folks read the other article though? http://www.insi...wn-by-facebook/
They didn’t “shut it down”, they told them to remove the functionality that notifies people they’ve been removed as a friend. Which is fair enough, because that can sometimes be why people aren’t so fussed about removing friend, cause the friend doesn’t know!
I don’t really think Facebook did anything wrong at all here, and whether they did or not, BK STILL gets even more publicity!
If anything, Facebook helped them, cause now they have the application still going, and the publicity of being told to change it!
Nice one, Crispin Porter + Bogusky. Kudos.
I loved BK’s idea… really brilliant viral marketing
So 200,000 people were found to have less value than a tenth of a whopper?
Very interesting idea. Got to agree with Rachael that it is a good viral marketing idea. Did Facebook remove the app because of the health issues associated with the Whopper?
Perhaps they should move over to Twitter instead.
I’ll happily unfollow 50 people if it gets me a free burger.
Cheers,
Tim
I’m with you on that one…
So, wait. When my girlfriend broke up with me for some dude with a better looking profile pic, it’s okay to share that? But THIS is not okay? Hopefully she was hungry sacrificed me for a Whopper before that news spread to my friends…
I am a marketer at a very large brand retailer. I can tell you that FB is probably one of the most arrogant and difficult to work with vendors I have ever been approached by. Many people who are buy side are just waiting for FB to wake up and smell the coffee, and realize they need us more than we need them.
Sounds like you’re still giving them money anyway.
Very very good idea, so simple yet so much potential ! Burger King / Hungry Jacks are making very good advertising decisions lately.
yep, it was a very cool app with one caveat: They send you the coupon for a free whopper by snail mail. Arg! I can’t wait 2-4 weeks BK, your meat perfume makes me want a whopper right now.
BK needs to do something fast to the many people who canned less than 10 friends only not to do it fast enough (because the app froze the computer during the “sacrificing period”) but with no coupon/reward…
duuumb, dumb, dumb, dumb…
Very bad move. Especially when they are doing poorly on the Facebook Ads end as well… improvements must be made!
oh come ON. This is against the APP TOS .. incentivizing integration points.
Yeesh.
Facebook as an advertising medium is fairly useless, and this incident displays this fact quite boldly.
What a great marketing campaign from Burger King. Facebook has such stupid policies, particularly when it comes to advertising on the platform. Time to lift your game FB and please do it quickly!
Facebook should embrace innovation, not squash it. {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/BmcO6ZiT4Y_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”Facebook should embrace innovation, not squash it. ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/fSpLg1XisB”}}}
I feel so hungry right now.
As a Facebook app developer who has torn out his hair at times over their policies and rules, I am happy to defend Facebook on this one. The least that Facebook is entitled to ask of developers is that we hold ourselves to the same rules as Facebook itself follows.
They made a decision long ago that notifying people of friend removals was bad for the socialnetwork. It’s something people virtually always want to be private. And so FB doesn’t announce it. Just like they (intelligently) decided showing “people who’ve viewed your profile” is pretty much just bad overall and not worth going there. Social behavior has a public face but also relies on discretion. They’re not stupid over there.
The application platform does not exist to poke holes in Facebook’s rules and guidelines. That would be stupid indeed. They can be frustrating at times but FB have built an incredible service (ahem- 2 “best in show” Crunchies???) and you have to learn when to trust them.
They know what they’re doing. And they can’t undercut basic community rules because some fucking fast-food ad comes along. PUH-LEASE!
“Did anyone talk to the sales department before doing this?”
I SERIOUSLY WOULD HOPE NOT. Do you want your supposedly private actions on FB at the whim of some burger promo? I don’t think you do.
Good reply. I wish Facebook were a little more vigilant at ferreting out the apps which don’t make it clear that they’re sending info to all your friends, but in general they’re pretty good at enforcing their privacy policies.
Well, for once I actually agree with FB on how they handled this. While it is (was) a pretty cool campaign, the payoff for Burger King only came from notifying your friends that they were bumped for a burger. Without that, there’s no risk in me dropping 10 friends because they never would have known.
To allow the BK application to continue would be akin to notifying someone who sends you a Friend Invite that you chose to Ignore rather than Accept.
Perhaps if they had given the user the option of whether or not to tell, that would have made the kids @ FB happy?
I agree, a very creative ad. However, wit without discretion is a sword in the hand of a fool. This campaign encourages people to sever previously acknowleged friends for free stuff. Since this message is the same for you and everyone else, the takeaway is they don’t care about anybody. Not a very positive message. But then again, Burger King is crap anyway, free or otherwise.
I’d be happy for a US whopper right about now….
I disagreed with FB at first, but now that I think about it, I agree with their policy. It’s not a huge loss for them if BK can’t run their app… Boo-Hoo, some billion dollar corporation won’t make a million dollars more.
Support the integrity of the community, and don’t stop doing what’s already working. If other companies want to advertise on FB, that’s fine, but dun let them destroy the community in the process.
It’s part of their policy, why give BK an exception?
I also agree it was an awesome marketing campaign, but also a great social experiment to see what the idea or concept of a ‘friend’ really is to some people.
I’m failing to see the brilliance of this campaign. I’m also failing to see why anyone would want Burger King’s disgusting product.
Do you think maybe your disgust at Burger King’s product may get in your way of seeing the brilliance of their campaign to sell said product?
They blew an opportunity? This is probably what they wanted/expected to happen. They got you to blog about it.
I would create a well-burger community of friends who connect with each other – then disconnect for a burger EVERY DAY… maybe even twice a day. Purely idiotic waste of money. I don’t use this grey web-site though.
Both sides of the story are stupid as only a ‘marketologist’ can be. There’s no other monkey in the world as stupid as this breed.
The whole thing seemed a little strange to me. First, you give us the nightmare-inducing mascot and now this oddity. What gives, BK?
Agreed – Facebook blew it. Especially in the macro sense. In the short term, they’re thinking this nascent but already-strong brand could be harmed and of course they don’t want anyone un-friending anyone else. That’s oppo of FB culture!
But in the long term, they are missing an opportunity to continue to be on the edge. And seen as being the edge. And personally, I’ll take living on the cliff peering over the vast ocean over the tule-fog filled valley every time.
you are a dumbass. this is the best thing that could have happened to facebook… it shows that it is a viable platform for marketing campaigns that get people talking at the water cooler. who cares that it got shut down…what matters is that it got into the news cycle, and most people would have forgotten about it next week whether it got shut down or not.
ad agencies, however, will remember.
While clever, this scheme was reaching too far in the amount of data they wanted anyway. In exchange for a burger that you can’t get until you receive a coupon in the mail, BK wanted your address, email, phone #, # of children in household, how many BK visits you make. Not to mention whatever it picks up from your profile when you install the app. F that.
Considering Facebook sells much of your private information, I don’t see how an app showing the defriending of someone is any more detrimental than their current policies.
Huge LOL.
82,771 people have actively responded to the campaign. Obviously we’re millions seeing it. But to me I’m not sure this will do good for the Burger King brand.
Missfiring risks are obvious and 82,771 is not much of a number considering we’re talking the largest community in the world (in most markets) and a global campaign
Burger King is so awesome when it comes to advertising and creative campaigns. Everything they do just makes me laugh and love them even more. Burger King body spray? Awesome. Giving people rewards for removing their friends? Awesomer (also the title of Burger Kings next campaign against McDonalds).
Stoopid Facebook.
Although Burger King probably isn’t that disappointed since it will get plenty of press.
I wanna be BFFs with Cripsin, Porter + Bogusky
I’m proud to say that I was one of those 80K people that is getting a free sandwich coupon in the mail after dumping 10 ‘friends’.
After removing 10 of my 40 friends my only question was if I could do it again!
I don’t see the real issue. Facebook makes money from being a social network – Burger King decides to run a campaign on Facebook where users diminish their social network, thereby reducing facebook’s social footprint. So why can’t facebook diss an app that is making money for someone else by damaging their network. Facebook’s not a charity afterall. I don’t agree with lots of things they do, but I think in this instance their decision is justifiable.
This just gives ‘em more publicity. Heh heh heh.
Another Sign that Facebook is doomed. Idiots have infected management.