Burger King teamed up with game brand NBA 2K21 in late March 2021 to create a Spanish campaign called #The Menu Court’: an in-game court customized to look like a Burger King menu broad with the fast food giant’s most popular products plastered all over the virtual hardcourt floor.
In-game, players in Spain who score from the floor position of one of the products (called a menu item marker) can win them for free in their next order by simply posting a video to Twitter tagging Burger King and NBA2K with the hashtag #BKMenuCourt to redeem the real-world equivalent of the product.
The tougher the shot, the bigger the menu reward.
The partnership with the game, developed by Visual Concepts and published by 2K Sports, uses the in-game court editing tools and requires hoops-loving burger eaters to download MyLeague Mode (PS4) or MyNBA Mode (PS5) and from there people can search “BK_TheMenuCourt” to download the branded arena.
The initiative, created by agency David Madrid alongside and production house DeSeif, aims to incentivise NBA 2K21 players with the lure of free food in return for completing tough shots in the official NBA basketball video game on PlayStation.
The promotion, which launched 25 March, runs like from 4 April on PS4 and PS5 and the in-game partnership is promoting primarily on Twitch, Twitter and YouTube with plenty of PR support.
A further strand of the promotional campaign saw Burger KIing team up with a trio of popular Spanish gamers – RobertPG (450,200 followers on Twitch, 5.33 million on YouTube), Papi Gavi (573,800 Twitch, 1.22 million YouTube) and Vituber (142,800 Twitch, 845,000 YouTube) – who each streamed their own attempts at the challenge on Twitch and YouTube.
The team at the creative agency David included Global CCO & Partner Pancho Cassis, Global COO Sylvia Panico, Executive Creative Directors André Toledo and Saulo Rocha, Creative Director Fred Bosch, Copywriter Jaime Ludeña, Art Director Francesc Enrich, Group Account Directors Lucila Mengide and Stefane Rosa, Account Supervisor Adriana Gonzalez, Strategic Mananger Patricia Urgoiti, Producer Sebastian Arce, Head of Social Alex Sánchez and Global PR Director Sandra Azedo.
At production company DeSeif the group working on the project included Global Chief Marketing Officer Fernando Machado, Global Brand Marketing Diego Suarez, CMO RBI Iberia Bianca Shen, Marketing Director Beatriz Faustino, Head of Brand Marketing Yvette Altet, Head of Digital Media & PR Borja Moya, plus Brand and Communication Manager María Lafuente.
Comment:
A basketball court you can eat? What’s not to like?
Little wonder that the initiative attracted almost 3,000 participants and it is a best practice example of how to reach gaming audiences on their own turf without interrupting or annoying them.
In terms of results, according to the agency, 2,773 took part in the promotional challenge which generated more than 4.9m impressions on social media with 99% of people reacting positively to the activation.
This initiative again sees Burger King engage younger sports fans and gamers by tapping in to the rocketing consumer interest in gaming and streaming and it follows in the footsteps of the quick service food giant’s previous award-winning EA Sports FIFA initiatives in partnership with English League Two side Stevenage FC ‘Biggest Club In The World (2019)’ and ‘Burger Queen (2020)’.
Burger King continues to build on these previous successes by targeting the gamer cohort through an immersive, competitive virtual sports-linked experience which links back to real-world rewards.
It sees the brand leverage the current spiking gaming trend driven by people forced to spend more time at-home during the pandemic and the longer term rise and rise of global gaming and aims to bring brand appeal to a young demographic which is typically ad-averse and seldom likes game-time being interrupted by marketing.
In-game ad placements are growing increasingly common, particularly in sports franchises where fans are more used to sponsorship assets on the pitch and around the stadium, but by making the activation part of the action looks to be a compelling and acceptable way to drive engagement and generate social buzz.
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.