Call Tom, the President of Burger King.
Burger King’s reputation for creative excellence hid the real story. The brand had taken a step back in the United States with sales lagging behind a struggling category. No amount of impressions could cover up the real conversation in pop culture: A generation of diners, disenfranchised by a creepy king and inconsistent food, just weren’t buying it.
So what did we do? Well, we stopped marketing entirely, and started listening. Literally. We gave out the president’s personal phone number to everyone in America so they could co-create the future of the brand with us.
No seriously. For the next week or so, he’s answering the phone all day, call: (305) 874-0520
“A clear upgrade from the original.”
Actually active listening.
But this wasn’t about being a lifeless punching bag. As the president, Tom put the entire brand to work. In a matter of weeks we operationalized our biggest piece of feedback: fix the Whopper so every bite was as good as the last. That meant researching, developing, and deploying new packaging, new ingredients, and new ways to building every burger—often on the phone with guests in real time.
The result? The first updates to the Whopper in over a decade, and a +16% bump in sales system-wide across stores nationally, starting, and sustained, since the launch of the improved Whopper.
“It’s like putting the Whopper in a tuxedo...”
““The beef flavor in this is way more brawny and pronounced — it hits you right up front, which seems like a credit to the flame-broiled nature of it,””
“Better tasting, creamier mayo, and a clamshell box to fix flattened Whoppers”