The Campaign

In the survey on Japanese consumers, we found that they like “OGIRI”, an association game where they provide funny or witty answers to the themes. According to the history book called “Shinsarugoki”, the origin of “OGIRI” dated back about 1,000 years. Using this familiar entertainment through generations in which the Japanese instinctively want to participate, we conducted a BIG KING launch campaign.

Creative Execution

“BIG OGIRI” campaign was conducted in all 98 BK shops. People associated anything “BIG” with the campaign and brought them to the shops. If shop staff judged them as unique or interesting, customers received a discount for the BIG KING. In order to respond to any “BIG” items brought in the shops, we made a detailed FAQ manual and shared it with the staff.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

The campaign of the American hamburger brand focused on the Japanese history, tradition and consumer insight, and instantly created buzz like “When I see something BIG, I associate it with BIG KING”. As a result, we earned 400 million media impression and 50.3million reach as well as No.1 in the Japanese social trends ranking.* BK acquired the consumer perception that “BIG KING is the best BIG hamburger in Japan” with increased popularity, which resulted in the product relaunch in April 2016. By digging into the Japanese insight, BK successfully increased sales by 116%, marking record sales over nine years of business in Japan. During the campaign, many unique “BIG” things were brought in. The number of “BIG” items brought to the shops totaled 65,792 (671 per shop) for 24 days and 43 % of BIG KING purchasers used the discount offered by the “BIG OGIRI” campaign. *Source: Video Research

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

Burger King (BK) once withdrew from the Japanese market, but by using the traditional Japanese entertainment with 1,000 years of history, the brand has been deeply engaged with Japanese people. BK has successfully changed the consumer perception through the campaign and made them think that when it comes to a big hamburger, it’s not McDonald’s BIG MAC, but Burger King’s BIG KING. As a result, the brand achieved the record sales with 116% increase on previous year in the 9th year of the business in Japan.

We used “OGIRI” to have people “associate everything BIG with BIG KING”. We announced the OGIRI’s theme in which the Japanese instinctively want to participate and then consumers brought their answers to BK shops. If they provided witty answers, they could get a discount for BIG KING. Through the interactive campaign with the traditional Japanese entertainment, the American brand, BK aimed to attract much attention and drive customer traffic to the shops.