Background
Burger King aims for the younger, trend-savvy audiences. More specifically, they target millennials and Gen Z via social media, gaming and in-culture communications and activations. In Belgium, where Burger King is still a 100% challenger brand in the market, the gaming community is key, because it’s a huge and very engaged audience. So, we need to constantly engage with that audience to maintain our growth. Except this year, we faced a challenge like never before. Our main competitor locked one of the main sponsorships in the world’s most popular soccer game, FC25. We needed to find a way to connect with that audience, and keep Burger King top of mind.
Idea
We discovered that among the more than 17000 real soccer players featured in FC25, there are actual players called ‘Burger’ (like ‘Wouter Burger’ – Stoke City) and players called ‘King’ (Like Joshua King’ – Toulouse) spread over different divisions. And that the in-game audio-commentator would pull from the database of players and trigger the dynamic AI system to call out the players name who is carrying the ball.
Through influencers and social posts, we taught FC25 fans how to trick the in-game commentators, by picking Burgers and Kings for their ‘Ultimate Team’. The call to action was simple: people were encouraged to score the “Burger to King” goals and post them to their social channels – taking advantage of a new in-game feature that allows gamers to record and share gameplay clips easier than ever before. Once posted, fans received a coupon with a direct message.
Strategy
For the past 30 years, the EA FC soccer game (formerly known as FIFA), always featured dynamic in-game commentary. But the pre-recorded human voice only mentioned the superstars’ names. Lesser-known players didn’t have their name recorded and therefore not mentioned.
But this year one of the many updates made to FC25 utilized AI voice and machine learning to allow the in-game commentators to voice every player’s names. That update opened the door for new possibilities – like a loophole, where we could make the in-game commentators say something unexpected. In this case, our brand name. So, when the rather unknown ‘Wouter Burger’ gives an assist to ‘Tom King’, the AI in-game commentary is forced to unwillingly say “Burger…to … King!”
Description
The gamer community indexes very high in fast food consumption, So as one of the biggest fast food brands in the world, we need to constantly engage with that audience to maintain our growth. Except this year, we faced a challenge like never before. Our main competitor locked one of the main sponsorships in the world’s most popular soccer game, FC25. We needed to find a way to connect with that audience, and keep Burger King top of mind.
EA Sports’ FC soccer franchise is one of the most played video games of all time and a part of the digitally native millennials and Gen Z culture (88% of Millenials and 92% of Gen Z actively play video games). FC25 was released at the end of September 2024, and Burger King, a brand historically connected to the gaming community, wanted to be a part of it.
Execution
The activation was announced by key FC25 streamers, who did numerous livestreams explaining the promo, inviting gamers and demonstrating how to score with Burgers and Kings, once again watched by thousands of enthusiasts.
To make it work we reminded people of who were some of these less know ‘Burgers’ and ‘Kings’. With a total of 9 players named King and 5 Burgers (including 4 Berger who sound like Burger when their names are narrated).
Gamers quickly took on the challenge and used either #BurgerToKing or @BurgerKing
to alert the brand they had posted a goal with “Burger to King”. Goals were posted on all social channels but most predominantly on TikTok. For every post, Burger King messaged the gamer with a coupon that could be redeemed at our App.
Outcome
‘Burger’ and ‘King” got over 200 000 times in-game mentions, in the first week only. Quickly turning ‘Burger’ ‘King’ into FC25 number 1 Top of mind brand in a game sponsored not by us, but by many other global brands including our biggest competitor.
In week 2, even the pro’s joined in. Some of the best FC25 players in the world, including @RBLZ_ALIHANLION, number 3 ranked FC25 gamer in the world, spontaneously streamed and heavily watched “Burger To King” tournaments, where our brand was mentioned non-stop. Ultimately creating the first ever unofficial in-game audio sponsorship. The ‘Burger to King’ gaming-hack resulted in a +81% increase in online engagement within gaming community. +2Million people saw at least one goal from Burger to King generating +217% ‘Burger King’ content consumption within gaming community. Boosted positive sentiment from 60% to 95% after the first campaign period.
