Case study on Burger King’s COVID-19 communication strategy executed by FoxyMoron
Burger King the multinational chain of hamburger fast food restaurants wanted to create relatable content to promote food hygiene, food safety, and safety measures being take amongst employees across social media
Summary of the Campaign:
The Covid-19 pandemic, enforced the biggest global lockdown known to mankind and brought with it an entire new way of living.As a result of which the dynamics of ‘eating out or ordering take-away’ completely changed. With in-dining, no longer being an option. People needed reliable, honest reassurances from their favourite fast food chains and restaurants that all safety measures were being adhered to, by each member of their staff and at each leg of the food preparation cycle.
In light of these circumstances, Burger King swiftly implemented more stringent food safety and sanitation norms which were in compliance with the government mandated requirements. It was imperative that Burger King shared these serious processes, with their customers, through strategic consistent communication via their social media handles while maintaining the ‘conversational’ voice of the brand at all times.
Broad Objective:
The broad objective of the content strategy was 3 fold:
- Maintain Brand Saliency via Contextual Messaging;
- Creating Consumer Awareness of Safety Measures undertaken by the Brand
- Communicate Safe Deliveries via Swiggy and Zomato.
The Big Idea:
The team at FoxyMoron, identified 3 Message pillars for Burger King:
- Trust in Taste: To build trust amongst the consumers by showing footage brand’s employees working through the pandemic and the safety measures they were taking. This was done by collating footage from videos and photos shared by the brand’s staff from their mobile phones.
- Safety Nuggets: To give assurance to the consumers that the food they were ordering was being prepared with all safety & hygiene precautionary measures in place.
- Contextual Food Craving: To fulfill the craving of the consumers and increase the delivery skew.
Execution Approach:
FoxyMoron changed Burger King’s social media strategy, from topical content to daily posts, as they wanted to increase the consumer’s awareness around safety while continuing to maintain Burger King’s gold standard of content. To begin with, the team increased their social media engagement with the Burger King followers from 1 post every 2 days to 2 – 3 creative posts daily, throughout the Lockdown.
- On 17th March 2020 Burger King started the narrative around COVID-19 by highlighting it’s ‘Crown Standard Measures’ which spoke about Food Assurance, C rew safety and Sanitization.
- On April 1st, 2020 Burger King spoke about the “Safe BK Journey” where we created videos using footage shared by their employees. They wanted their customers to get to know the real heroes behind their meal and highlight their efforts as they continued to work through the pandemic. The intention here was to keep the campaign look and feel authentic.
- Thereafter, Burger King promoted their specially curated ‘Stay at Home’, Swiggy and Zomato (Delivery Partners) combos to increase the consideration amongst the customers . The names of the combos were based on the relatable consumer
realities like ‘W ork from Home’, ‘Forced Family Time’ and ‘Bored at Home’.
- As customers began ordering via delivery partners, we continued to reassure customers of Burger King’s food safety and food assurance, with posts peppered in the brand’s quintessential quirky humour using the hashtag #TrustInTaste
- As loyal customers of Burger King had to maintain social distancing norms, it didn’t stop the team from going the extra mile to create a personal connection to show they cared. Through an ORM led activity, FoxyMoron reached out to multiple customers, one of them was a 7 year old who was missing the ‘kingly’ treatment a little too much. The team surprised him with his favourite meal and a box of their goodies, much to the little one’s sheer delight.
- Towards the end of April, everyone was hopeful around the fact that the lockdown would end on 4th May. So we created food craving posts to capitalize the day with a fun narrative that we would be back and operating from 4th May. Our hashtag for this campaign was #MayYour4thBeWithUs. However as the lockdown extended, specific coloured zones were mapped out. For this, a new content unit called “Colors Of
H unger” was created, where the goal was to convey that one can order food to their
home regardless of the color zone they belonged to.
- As the lockdown restrictions relaxed towards the end of May a new narrative which highlighted the safety measures being taken in the restaurants was launched. The intent here was to maintain the consumer’s trust, as safety continued to be a
concern. On W orld Safety Day, the Burger King highlighted the measures being taken
by their team which included showcasing the safety assurance bags which were specifically designed during lockdown. The packaging of these bags were tamper proof as they came along with a safety seal, a personalized ‘crew assurance letter’, and free sanitizer, in every delivery or takeaway order.
Channels used: The content was promoted on Burger King’s Facebook, Instagram,
and Twitter handles.
On April 1st, 2020 they spoke about “Safe BK Journey” where videos were created using footages shared by the Burger King employees. The intention was to make the campaign look and feel authentic and to make people to know who exactly were the people behind their meal. Highlighting and acknowledging the heroes and their faces who continued to work through the pandemic. Specially curated Lockdown swiggy and zomato combos were promoted across social media to increase the consideration among the audiences.
● The result & outcome
The COVID related communication commenced 17th March onwards. The content garnered positive responses from consumers and was highly appreciated by Burger King’s global team. Below is a brief comparison of the statistics pre lockdown and during lockdown.
| Stats Pre Lockdown | Stats during Lockdown |
| Post Reach: 4M | Post Reach: 8M |
| Organic Reach: 800K | Organic Reach: 1M |
| Organic Video Views per post: 800+ | Organic Video Views per post: 1.5K+ |
| Organic Followers: 300+ | Organic Followers: 500+ |
Challenges faced by the agency:
- The challenge was to deliver this content in snackable formats to ensure the least consumer fatigue.
- Burger King wanted to produce a video from scratch with FoxyMoron’s video solutions co-agency, The Rabbit Hole team. Unfortunately, they couldn’t due to COVID-19 restrictions. However, they managed to create videos using footage shot by Burger King’s employees using their phones.
- Another challenge was to consistently tweak content in accordance with rapidly changing lockdown extensions. This required carefully assessing the situation on a daily basis.
How was this campaign different from what the competitors are doing in the segment:
The Burger King content and communication strategy was completely different from other players in the category, who were creating content on quarantine contests to maintain brand recall among the audience. On the other hand, Burger King had a multi messaging approach comprising food safety, topical messaging and creating authentic connections with the brand by using videos and photographs shot and featuring the employees of the brand.