The "Whopper Freak-out" Campaign from Burger King

Whopper Freak-out was a viral marketing campaign launched by Burger King as an experiment to see how customers would react if they were told that the Whopper was being removed from the menu.

The campaign was launched to celebrate the Whopper's 50th anniversary. This was also a bid by the company to know whether the Whopper was America's most favorite burger. Burger King was well known for the innovative advertising campaigns it had run since the late 1950s. The most successful of all was its 'Have it Your Way' campaign launched in 1974, which encouraged consumers to order the burger the way they liked it.

Burger King mostly adopted the traditional methods of advertising until 2004 when it launched its 'Subservient Chicken' viral marketing campaign to promote its TenderCrisp chicken sandwiches. The campaign proved successful and was continued even in 2009. Buoyed by its success, the fast food giant started adopting a more innovative and unconventional methods of marketing. While the campaigns promoted Burger King's products, they also helped it increase its sales and revive its brand image...

The 'Whopper Freak-out' Campaign

Having identified the challenges, Burger King went ahead with trying to prove that the Whopper was America's #1 burger. The only way to do this was to demonstrate it, according to CP+B. Instead of carrying out market research or conducting taste tests or street interviews, the agency planned to do something that had never been done before. It devised an experiment. Rather than giving people a Whopper and noting their response, the agency opted for taking away the Whopper from the menu to see what would happen...

To achieve the objective few TV commercial Ads were made. These television ads have been split into two categories. The beginning of the campaign focused on the removing of the Whopper from the menu. This portion of the campaign had two different 30-second commercials and five different 15-second spots. The second part of the television campaign focused on the Whopper being replaced with a competitor’s product and featured five different 30-second spots. The television ads had an immediate effect. Google Trends, which looks at what the new and emerging search terms are each day, shows that “whopper freakout” and “whopperfreakout.com” both burst into the Top Ten for search terms.

Analysis of the “Whopper Freak-out” Campaign

Most of the customers were shocked to hear that their favorite burger had been discontinued. Their reactions were videotaped using hidden cameras and this was made into a 7½ minute documentary that was posted on the Internet.

The link for the documentary is

http://www.bk.com/en/us/campaigns/whopper-freakout.html

The other few statistics related to the Campaign from the report are:

• The 7 1/2 minute video at Whopperfreakout.com has received more than 1.3 million views.
• On YouTube, as of Wednesday, the full-length video, clips from it, or different versions of the commercials have been posted 22 different times and collectively they have garnered more than 217,000 views.
• 5 parodies of the Whopper Freakout Campaign have been posted on YouTube, including the “Ghetto Whopper Freakout.” Together they have drawn more than 135,000 views.
• On Whopperfreakout.com, visitors are offered a code to embed the full video onto their blog or website. The video has been embedded on 17,086 different blogs and websites.

India IT-BPO Market To Touch $285 Billion By 2020: Report

India’s IT-BPO market (including exports) could touch $285 billion in 2020 growing at a CAGR of 15 percent. According to a report release by KPMG and ASOCIO called Asia-Oceania Vision 2020: Enabling IT leadership through collaboration, India will cater to approximately 51 percent of overall global sourcing demand is expected to retain its leadership position by 2020.

The report claims that the IT-BPO industry in India has achieved impressive growth rates over the past decade.

“India is expected to achieve double digit growth rates in the IT-BPO industry, with a focus on innovation. However, the country needs to sustain its cost competitiveness and develop the requisite skills of its large workforce,” said Kumar Parakala, Global Head, Sourcing Advisory and COO, Advisory, KPMG India. “India could also develop complementary skills in hardware, so that it can showcase a more diversified portfolio of products and services.”

According to the report, the contribution of some of the developed countries like Japan, Australia and New Zealand in the regional demand for IT-BPO service is likely to decrease by 2020. However, the contribution of developing countries like India and Thailand is expected to increase in the coming years. Newer countries such as Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh are also expected to make their mark on the global sourcing supply landscape by 2020.

The report emphasizes that if diversity within the Asia-Oceania region is effectively leveraged it could lead to collaborative growth. Collaboration is likely to act as a facilitator for nations to address common challenges, leverage each others’ competitive advantage and thereby aim for a much larger target market in the information, communication and technology (ICT) industry by 2020.

"While most economies are struggling with recessionary times, Asia-Oceania nations have already started experiencing an upturn. ICT is being used as a key enabler for growth, which is helping these economies move out of the downturn at a faster pace. ICT led growth is expected to push Asia-Oceania to greater heights, with some economies of the region achieving super-power status by 2020,” added Parakala.

Budget Review

Analysis By Arindam Chaudhuri

Article contributed By

Mr Kalpesh Chouhan

PGDM (Marketing)2008-10

Balaji Institute of Telecom & Management

AN ‘OBJECTIVELESS’ AND TIMID BUDGET

Shortage of a hundred and fifty million rural employment jobs. Shortage of twenty five million urban employment jobs… Additional Rs 1 lakh crore required to replace urban slums… And Rs 10,000 crore required every year for five years to give justice to every Indian by ramping up the judiciary… Another Rs 20,000 crore required every year to make universal primary education a reality and have equality in education opportunities… And additional Rs 10,000 crore required annually to give some basic access to health facilities… Welcome to India. A country where the hospital beds to population ratio is 1:1422, ranked 161 alongside sub-Saharan African countries, against an ideal ratio of 1:333 prescribed by the United Nations. A country with 2.4 million temples but only 1.4 million temples of education i.e. schools… A country with 30 million cases pending in courts, making life hell for the common man who wants justice, because our courts have only 12 judges per million population compared to 120 judges per million in the developed world.

In the middle of such an environment, what’s the role of an annual budget? Is it to maintain status quo or to give the world a robust signal that we are committed to our people – the 45 crore people who earn below 1.25 dollars a day? If the objective is to maintain the status quo, then Pranabda has delivered a perfect budget, as loudly proclaimed by each and every member of the equally objectiveless and visionless industry organisations like FICCI, CII and ASSOCHAM etc. They were too happy that the entire stimulus package had not been withdrawn. As it is, the spokespersons aren’t independent intellectuals. They are timid business men – however rich they might be – scared to ever speak against the government as their businesses are at stake! In most cases, they aren’t even capable of commenting on the budget, such low is their understanding. But they are the people who give the bytes and that’s what next days headlines look like in papers indirectly and directly owned by them and mostly run by sold out editors or editors intellectually incapable of analyzing a budget or how it needs to be. So the verdict that they have given is thumbs up!

The man on the street, of course, has no voice. And his concerns are of no importance to politicians or media. Media has no vision to effectively and constantly focus on their cause in order to effect a change. They are more interested in rapes, murders and sex, which keep the readers confined to intellectually dumbed-down dustbins of these media houses.

The truth, however, is that if we were to look at this budget from the perspective of people – those 45 crore that I mentioned above and another 35 crore who are just marginally better off – then this budget is a hoax for them. Allocations to the best scheme of the Sonia government, or for that matter any government in ages – the NREGA scheme – wasn’t even increased enough to cover the inflation! What was done was a mere increase from Rs 39,000 crore to about Rs 41,000 crore. At a point of time when the common man is being made to pay an astoundingly scary Rs 50 per kg for sugar and Rs 100 per kg for dal, when the food inflation has touched horrific proportions and when they were looking up to the budget for some relief, forget immediate relief measures, there were no signs of any long run relief either in this budget. No lip service even to stop hoarding. No measures to stop speculation in food. No recommendation of strict punishment to the hoarders and no announcement of using the country’s huge forex reserves to import basic food necessities to increase supply and reduce prices. In other words, totally shocking. The reference to the aam aadmi went missing. It was clearly a budget for the mango people who live in India and not the aam aadmi who lives in Bharat.

The long-run steps to increase agriculture growth through a new green revolution got a token Rs 400crore. Nothing could have been more hilarious. Now, NBFCs (non banking financial institutions) can open banks and Rahul Bajaj must be very happy with his part of lobbying. But the real requirement of financial inclusion, which reaches a rotting low of less than 200 million people compared to the required 900 million people, still remains unsolved. At a time when so much had to be done for the poor who are the direct sufferers of the high inflation, the government gave away Rs 26,000 crore to the middle class and rich through its new tax structure favouring the two per cent top class of people who pay taxes in this country! I have been always for lesser taxes to increase tax base, but in a year like this, such a move was a bit too much to accept, especially when compared to the lack of commitment of resources for the bottom 70 percent people.

The allocation of Rs 22,300 crore is marginally up for national rural health but still is too less when you look at the fact that 85 percent of Indians do not have access to health insurance; and every year, an estimated 30 million people slip below the poverty line because they have to meet healthcare expenses though out-of- pocket expenses.

So is all bad? No! We are now going to have a new symbol for currency; similar to the dollar and the euro. And some agency, which will design it, will make a lot of money! It’s assumed that the developed world is so full of donkeys that despite the pathetic conditions that we have bestowed upon a majority of our people, the developed world will respect India due to a new symbol of our currency. Oh yes, how can I forget that in times of such internal security crisis and naxalite movement, a hilarious number of 2000 new paramilitary forces will be employed!

All in all, there have been some welcome extra investment in infrastructure and highways, good non-pollution initiatives, and some great tax structure changes if you are a tax-payer. For the rest, it has been an objectiveless exercise. Bringing me back to the question, ‘why have such a budget at all?’ When throughout the year, the government in any case keeps announcing various policies, then why should we not let the budget be a mere statement of results? Why this sham? There is no accountability… the poor hardly get anything; and to top it all, during the last year, a whopping Rs 1 lakh crore of allocated funds remained unused! It will only grow this year. I repeat, to me it was an objectiveless budget. A mere timepass.

2010-11 Budget Analysis

Key Features of Budget 2010-2011

CHALLENGES

·         To quickly revert to the high GDP growth path of 9 per cent and then find the means to cross the ‘double digit growth barrier’.

·         To harness economic growth to consolidate the recent gains in making development more inclusive.

·         To address the weaknesses in government systems, structures and institutions at different levels of governance.

OVERVIEW OF THE ECONOMY

·         India among the first few countries in the world to implement a broad-based counter-cyclic policy package to respond to the negative fallout of the global slowdown.

·         The Advance Estimates for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth for 2009-10 pegged at 7.2 per cent. The final figure expected to be higher when the third and fourth quarter GDP estimates for 2009-10 become available.

·         The growth rate in manufacturing sector in December 2009 was 18.5 per cent – the highest in the past two decades.

·         A major concern during the second half of 2009-10 has been the emergence of double digit food inflation. Government has set in motion steps, in consultation with the State Chief Ministers, which should bring down the inflation in the next few months and ensure that there is better management of food security in the country.

CONSOLIDATING GROWTH

Fiscal Consolidation

·         With recovery taking root, there is a need to review public spending, mobilize resources and gear them towards building the productivity of the economy.

·         Fiscal policy shaped with reference to the recommendations of the Thirteenth Finance Commission, which has recommended a calibrated exit strategy from the expansionary fiscal stance of last two years.

·         It would be for the first time that the Government would target an explicit reduction in its domestic public debt-GDP ratio.

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