Burger King Cooks Up A Winner

• CAMPAIGN: The Apprentice 3
• AGENCY: Equity Marketing, with Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, and Wunderman
• CLIENT: Burger King

Equity Marketing takes top spot with Apprentice placement

“Have It Your Way.” The Burger King Corp.’s motto says it all and kept its promise this winter, driving fans of NBC’s hit reality show The Apprentice from the boardroom directly into its restaurants and beyond.

The QSR became the first to sign as a task sponsor on The Apprentice in the Jan. 20 episode. And the promotion proved its merit, even creating a popular burger, with more than 1.2 million served in the two weeks following the show.

The promotion showed how branded entertainment — done effectively — can drive sales while making reality TV more entertaining for viewers.

Equity Marketing, Inc., the entertainment marketing division of EMAK Worldwide and Burger King’s lead AOR, takes the top EMMA for 2005, winning Best Overall and Best Campaign for Broadcast TV for its role in the day-to-day planning of the sponsorship.

“Branded content is such a hot topic these days,” says Kim Thomsen, president and chief creative officer of EMAK Worldwide. “We’ve really explored the idea of much more strategic, branded entertainment…where there is an opportunity to activate something placed in a film or TV, and bring it back to the restaurant.”

January is traditionally a slow month for QSRs. BK says The Apprentice provided the ideal venue to showcase the restaurant. The series “has a following we think it important to our brand,” says Cindy Syracuse, senior director, marketing impact at Burger King Corp.

“We’re big fans of the show,” Syracuse explains. “We would sit here…at lunch and talk about The Apprentice. There are millions of fans of the show. We knew a lot of other people liked it and thought it was a great opportunity [for] our brand.

“It’s not easy to just throw a product out there,” she continues. “We went into this wanting to sell a great product. We wanted it to be branded entertainment and be a part of pop culture.”

During the episode, Apprentice teams took on the meaty task of running a Burger King franchise in New York during the launch of a new sandwich. Not only did Apprentice candidates create and sell the new product, they learned the inner workings of the fast-food restaurant industry — completing a food safety and restaurant management-training course, running the cash register and filling food orders.

“The Apprentice offered the opportunity to not just showcase the Burger King product, but to really showcase the restaurant itself,” Thomsen says. “What seemed like a simple thing [to do] was really complicated. It gave a greater appreciation of Burger King.”

Apprentice candidates also devised a marketing stunt around the new sandwich and drove customer traffic to the restaurants. The team with the largest sales, Net Worth, won the task for its marketing strategy around the Western Angus Steak Burger.

The QSR further extended its brand via the Internet, offering an interactive Web site on BK.com that let consumer share in The Apprentice action. The Web site challenged consumers to build their own sandwich and design a marketing campaign around it. Calvin Harris, head chef at Burger King Corp., led participants through the task at BK.com with interactive messages. Participants received feedback based on their “job performance.”

The Web site touted a sweepstakes offering a chance to win an American Airlines vacation package for two to any destination within the U.S. VML, an interactive Web design firm based in Kansas City, worked with Burger King to develop the Apprentice-themed Web site. The site generated more than 600,000 unique visitors during the promotion.

Little did reality show members know Burger King had its own challenge to meet after the episode’s airing. The company’s task? Prepare employees to sell the winning team’s burger as part of a nationwide promotion the very next day. Apprentice-themed materials greeted employees less than 12 hours later at more than 7,600 restaurants in the U.S. and more than 250 in Canada

A Task of its own

The promotion, the fastest new product launch in the company’s history, paid off. Burger King exceeded its sales forecast of Angus Burgers by 20%. It was no easy feat. Equity Marketing and Burger King executives had three weeks to complete sponsorship negotiations before the episode’s filming began, Thomsen says.

“Anytime you are successful in business…it’s because you are giving consumers what they want,” Syracuse says. “We, at Burger King, are about what people want.”

In addition to Los Angles-based Equity Marketing, other agencies worked on the promotion. Crispin, Porter + Bogusky of Miami handled adult TV advertising and Chicago-based Wunderman handled packaging and P-O-P.

The cost of sponsoring a task on the hit show in exchange for brand exposure is estimated at $2 million to $3.5 million. Burger King declined to comment on the financial terms made with Mark Burnett Productions, the co-producer of The Apprentice. But Syracuse backed the restaurant’s decision to join forces with the show.

“It was absolutely worth the effort,” Syracuse says. “[The appearance] gave Burger King the opportunity to communicate directly to our core customer via pop culture dialogue and resulted in a significant system-wide sales increase.”

The unofficial measure of most branded entertainment promotions still rests with one simply test — the water cooler factor. In the case of Burger King and The Apprentice, the jury has ruled. “It’s water cooler worthy,” Thomsen says.