The Eat Like Andy Story

WHY ANDY WARHOL?

When the scene of Andy Warhol eating a Whopper was brought to us by DAVID The Agency, we became obsessed with it instantly. And, the more we talked about it, the more we were convinced that airing this scene, from the 1982 documentary 66 Scenes of America, by Jørgen Leth, would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Burger King brand.

The Whopper is America’s Favorite Burger and having an icon such as Andy Warhol eating it shows that with confidence. It is also the best kind of endorsement we could hope for, because it comes from someone who was not paid by Burger King to endorse the product. Our brand is all about authenticity and there is really nothing more authentic than that. And, despite the fact that this was done in 1982, the film resembles a lot many current trends like “unboxing” (there are millions of videos of people unpacking products online) and “ASMR” (which is a trend of magnifying sounds pretty much like the film we are talking about here). Andy Warhol was obviously ahead of his time…

Many questioned if “people who watch the Super Bowl” or that “eat burgers” don’t know who Andy Warhol is. Some also said that Andy Warhol, as a figure, wouldn’t be so relatable to the younger generations. These statements, however, are not entirely true.

When we were evaluating the idea, one data point that caught our attention was the fact that, on Instagram, Andy Warhol actually has more than 4X more mentions than the combined mentions for Sarah Jessica Parker, Melissa McCarthy, Charlie Sheen, Jason Bateman, and Steve Carrel altogether (Source: Crimson Hexagon). We consider Instagram a platform that over-indexes with younger demographics and that’s why we felt that this data point was very encouraging.

Also, when looking at the specific piece of film we were planning to use, we also noticed that hundreds of people had already recreated the scene online (just search “Andy Warhol burger” on YouTube and you will see).

Image 1. Images pulled from YouTube parodies.

In fact, even celebrities such as Ellen Degeneres, Steve Carrel, Macaulay Culkin, Iggy Pop, among others, have paid homage to Warhol by doing their own parodies of the scene. Because of these signs, we believed that there would be great potential for people to spontaneously jump in and become part of the campaign in a very authentic way.

Image 2. Steve Carrel, Macaulay Culkin, and Iggy Pop “eating like Andy”.

THE TEASER

Our bet was that a lot of people would embrace the campaign. And that’s why we created a teaser in partnership with DoorDash. Our teaser featured The King preparing a set for the shooting of our Super Bowl commercial. The set was designed to look exactly like the set used in the original Andy Warhol Eating a Burger film. We even shot the teaser using actual film (instead of shooting it digitally) so it could have the same grainy texture of the original.

Image 3. Burger King Super Bowl teaser in partnership with DoorDash.

The teaser ended with the offer of a “Mystery Box” that could be ordered for free when people bought more than $10 worth of Burger King products on DoorDash. We put together 6,000 Mystery Boxes in total. The number of boxes was calculated based on our daily sales via home delivery. We were assuming they would last for a week or so. But they were gone in less than 48 hours. The intention behind the Mystery Box idea was to provide our fans with a chance to fully engage and participate on the campaign. We know our fans well and we know they love this type of surprise. Inside the Mystery Boxes were white wigs, ketchup bottles, and a note from the brand instructing receivers to hold onto their items until the “big game” on February 3. No further explanation of the items was provided—only an assurance that everything would make sense shortly.

Image 4. The Burger King Mystery Box.

THE BIG NIGHT

We decided not to release the film before the Super Bowl. Many brands actually released their films in the week before the game. But at Burger King we like to do things differently. And we thought it would be better to build expectation with the teaser and only release Eat Like Andy as a surprise, a silent assassin, in the middle of the most cluttered advertising environment in the world. The spot was meant to break through the traditional Super Bowl commercial break, filled with explosions, slapstick jokes and celebrities, with an almost silent, yet powerful work of art. And that’s what happened on the second break of the 4th quarter of the Super Bowl. We had 45 seconds of ambient sound and Andy Warhol eating a Whopper. No cuts. No special effects. No music. No paid celebrities. Just Andy.

The second the spot aired, it was all hands on keyboards. Our real-time plan included everything from posting the spot online to changing our profile header images to reactively engaging with the staggering volume of mentions and conversation around the spot. As anticipated, half of the conversation revolved around genuine confusion over Andy’s identity or what people had just watched - and the other half applauded the daring spot for successfully disrupting the stream of typical Super Bowl ads.

We never assumed everyone would know who Andy Warhol was. In fact, we believed that, since lots of people would not know who he was, our spot would sparkle a lot of debate and engagement. We also knew some people would recognize Andy Warhol. And we knew some people would even recognize where that specific piece of film came from. And, since most people watch the Super Bowl with friends (and the TV commercials are part of the entertainment for them), we did assume that someone in the group would know who Warhol was. And that would be a great conversation starter in every single Super Bowl venue.

Reality is that running a TV commercial in the Super Bowl is not like running a TV commercial in any other day of the year. Besides the difference in cost and reach, the biggest difference on Super Bowl commercials is that people actually want to watch them. In fact, watching the ads ranks as #2 reason behind people watching the Super Bowl (ahead of the half-time show!).

Image 5. Most important part of the game according to viewers of the Super Bowl in 2018.

Because of this fact, we were not so concerned about having a spot which would feel “slow/ passive” or would be “hard to understand”. People would be paying attention. And the spot would definitely spark conversations (wherever people were watching and on-line). We know that most people watch the Super Bowl holding their phones and interacting in social media. So, because of the unique nature of the film, if no one in your room was able to explain what the hell was happening on the Burger King spot, we knew Google and Social Media would be the immediate go-to places. People want to be in-the-know. No one wants to experience high levels of FOMO. And that’s precisely what happened. We had a massive spike in search around “Burger King” and “Andy Warhol”. Search for “Burger King” was higher than Bud Light and Pepsi. And search for “Andy Warhol” dwarfed everything else.

Image 6. Google Trends for Burger King (green), Andy Warhol (red), Bud Light (yellow) and Pepsi (orange).

If everyone knew who Andy Warhol was, if we had leveraged a paid celebrity to endorse our product, if the film were packed with action, explosions, dogs (or robots in the case of this year’s Super Bowl), loud music, etc., our spot would have been nothing but a typical Super Bowl spot. Just one more on the list. A list that tends to become irrelevant and forgettable pretty quickly. We wanted to do something different. We know that different tends to work for us as a brand. And we loved the idea of doing something super meta, where advertising becomes art becomes advertising becomes art… That would create a lot of talkability.

WAS THE BUZZ NEGATIVE OR POSITIVE?

We knew that airing an (almost) silent 1982 film with Andy Warhol would disrupt the clutter during the Super Bowl. Most Super Bowl ads are loud, active, over the top – basically the opposite of everything “Eat Like Andy” is. Add to that the fact that lots of people would not know who Andy Warhol was and the debate that would generate. We also knew that confusion sometimes creates negative sentiment. And that people tend to react negatively to something that is very different (it makes you uncomfortable). But our assumption was that, as the debate around the spot unfolded, it would move sentiment towards neutral/ positive. And even if some disliked the spot after fully understanding it, the film was never going to offend them. It's not like we were taking a political stance or confronting one’s belief system. One could even argue that the spot was aiming to democratize art (which is something very aligned with Warhol’s mindset). And that’s surely not a bad thing. In the end, we were basically showing a man (well… Andy Warhol) eating a burger. So, sure, some people will not be a fan, but they will not stop going to Burger King because of that. With that said… for those who liked it… that liking would become love. That was our assumption/ bet.

What is described above is pretty much what happened. When the spot broke on the 4th quarter we had a spike on Google search (as previously described) and Twitter. The initial sentiment was divided and the spot was triggering some strong views online. Negative sentiment reached a range from 20 to 25% in the beginning (with 75 to 80% as neutral/ positive). People were confused and debating the spot. That's probably when most of the voting of Ad Meter from USA Today took place. And that's probably why we ended up at the very bottom of the Ad Meter (though we are actually proud to have generated such strong feelings). Our bet was that the sentiment would shift as people started to gather more information around the campaign. This approach would probably not work in normal advertising environments, but the Super Bowl is different. People were actively engaged with commercials, people were watching in groups, people were holding their cell phones. So, over time, as people kept debating and started understanding the spot, a greater level of appreciation began to appear/ grow. The negative sentiment on 2/6 (48 hours after the Super Bowl) was less than half of the negative sentiment during the Super Bowl (around 10% already on 2/5) and the neutral/ positive sentiment reached around 90%. Many of the articles saying that the campaign was received negatively based their analysis on the sentiment at the time of the Super Bowl and are focused on Twitter only (sentiment on Instagram tended to be more positive than on Twitter for this campaign). Reality is that our assumption always was that the sentiment would shift. There were lots of backstories to the campaign (Who is this guy? Where does this film come from? Why is Burger King doing this? Is this real of CGI? Etc…). And as people learned about the stories and discussed with friends and family, the appreciation for the campaign grew more and more. Today the campaign reached around 50,000 mentions in social media (and the number is still growing cause people continue to talk about it). People engaged so much that there were even heated discussions on why Andy Warhol removed the bottom bun of the Whopper but placed the ketchup on the side and not directly on the sandwich (!).

By the way, some of the negative sentiment is associated to people saying things such as “What the f*ck was that?” or “It’s a shame Andy Warhol is dead”. The algorithm used to calculate sentiment assumes that keywords like “f*ck” or “dead” are negative. That's not necessarily the case. But we decided against trying to exclude these mentions manually and simply go with the result that comes straight from our read.

In terms of earned media, the campaign reached more than 3 billion media impressions globally (we are still compiling the results, many countries are not yet accounted for on this number). This level of impressions is the equivalent of USD 25 to 30 million in earned media. Our assumption is that after compiling all numbers the campaign will reach around 4 to 5 billion global media impressions. Most of the impressions are neutral/ positive, which also helped shift the initial negative sentiment triggered by confusion to become overwhelmingly neutral/ positive. The campaign was covered by vehicles such as Time, WSJ, Inc., Business Insider, Forbes, USA Today, Good Morning America, among many others.

Image 7. Some of the positive headlines around the “Eat Like Andy” campaign.

We don’t think ‘any publicity is good publicity’. We know that Andy Warhol said “don’t pay any attention to what they write about you, just measure the inches”. But our approach was not to create talkability for the sake of being talked about whether in a positive or negative way. We wanted to elevate our brand by creating something which would be talked about, but, at the same time, remind people about how iconic our brand (Burger King) and products (Whopper) are. The Whopper is not America’s Favorite Burger by accident. And showing Andy Warhol eating one not as a celebrity but as as a human being (that’s why we went with “Eat Like Andy” and not “Eat Like Warhol”) would basically demonstrate that the Whopper is for everyone, that the sandwich is a social equalizer (something Andy Warhol always admired in brands such as Coca Cola). And that Burger King is a cool brand that is willing to do things differently. That's why people actually embraced it and did their own videos and photos eating like Andy.

Image 8. People eating like Andy on Instagram.

The main objective of this campaign was to move brand attributes. We never saw this campaign as an activity to increase sales. If we simply wanted to drive short-term sales, we would have used the money to run a promotion. It’s hard to beat a big coupon drop or an aggressive promotion if you are looking for short-term sales increase. Yet, if you want to build a brand for the long run, you need to find ways to connect with people at a different level. This is even more important when it comes to connecting with younger generations. Burger King has been in the marketplace since 1954. And if we don’t aim to connect with brains, stomachs and hearts, the brand will fail to engage with people at a deeper level.

DID IT DO ANYTHING FOR THE BRAND?

In order to make sure we were moving the brand in the right direction with our “Eat Like Andy” campaign, we commissioned a quantitative research in the US through YouGov to evaluate things such as key brand attributes, consideration and purchase intention. We did a wave before the Super Bowl (1/22-1/23) and a wave after the Super Bowl (2/5-2/6). The sample size is around 1,200 people and should represent general population in the US. Through this research we have the ability to segment per age, gender, geography, people who watched the spot vs. people who didn't watch the spot, among others.

Believe it or not, the vast majority of the metrics for Burger King post-Super Bowl have significantly increased when compared to the period pre-Super Bowl. That increase was particularly strong among younger generations and those who actually watched the “Eat Like Andy” spot during the game. As we present the data, we will call out the results among 18-34 years old to showcase how the spot performed among the younger age bracket we measured.

"Positive Buzz" for the brand increased by +9.3% among general population after the Super Bowl (+19.7% among 18-34 years old).  If we zoom in and look only at people who actually watched the “Eat Like Andy” spot vs. the ones who did not, "Positive Buzz" actually jumped by 35.7% (+51.6% among 18-34 years old). Note that we are not talking about “buzz”. We are talking about "positive buzz".

What we are describing here has the same pattern on all metrics we measured. Here is a short summary of all the other attributes we measured (people who watched the spot vs. people who didn't watch the spot):

• Talked About in the Past 2 Weeks: +49.0% (+51.1% among 18–34 years old)
• Purchase Consideration: +8.3% (flat among 18–34 years old)
• Most Likely to Purchase: +11.0% (+95.0% among 18–34 years old)
• Cool Brand: +189.4% (+167.3% among 18–34 years old)
• Feel Good About the Food: +78.6% (+96% among 18-34 years old)
• Real and Authentic: +114.2% (+153.1% among 18-34 years old)
• Brand I Associate With: +154.5% (+201% among 18-34 years old)
• Would Not Consider: -27.8% (-52.2% among 18-34 years old)*

* Note this is the only attribute where negative is good (the more negative it is, the less of a barrier to purchase the brand has).

It is really important to mention that, when comparing the scores pre-Super Bowl with the scores post-Super Bowl among people who did not watch the “Eat Like Andy” campaign, there was absolutely no change in the score (if anything it declined a bit in some cases, but within the margin of error). In other words, people who were not exposed at all to “Eat Like Andy” (which is kind of a control cell) didn't show any sign of perception change related to Burger King. Because of that we can infer that the “Eat Like Andy” campaign was the main driver of the shift in all the variables described above.

BUT DID IT SELL MORE BURGERS?

As mentioned before, the main objective of the “Eat Like Andy” campaign was not to drive short-term sales. With that said, the Super Bowl teaser campaign broke home delivery sales record per restaurant in the USA multiple times since the beginning of the campaign. Burger King experienced an uplift of around 38% in home delivery sales versus the 30 days prior to the launch of the “Eat Like Andy” campaign.

When it comes to the Super Bowl spot, we are not authorized to disclose total sales figures outside of our quarterly results. So unfortunately this info will need to wait till end of Q1’19.

CONCLUSIONS:

The “Eat Like Andy” campaign successfully broke the Super Bowl clutter by taking a radically different creative approach: while most brands went for the typical louder-is better, larger-than-life approach, we released a silent assassin that captured people’s attention.

The choice for Warhol was driven by the unique opportunity presented by the scene of Andy eating a Whopper, but also by substantial evidence of the artist’s enduring relevancy drawn from social media, especially among younger generations.

The teaser, developed in partnership with DoorDash, set the stage for the actual game, generating lots of anticipation and providing our fans with the perfect tools to engage with the campaign on the day of the Super Bowl. This partnership allowed brand fans to be part of the campaign, something that was unique and different. The teaser also triggered a surge in deliver sales, leading to consecutive record-breaking sales through this channel.

During the big night, the spot aired, sparkling a heated debate in social media and generating massive engagement with the campaign. Burger King and Warhol dominated the search space, with searches for our brand on Google being significantly higher than all other brands, including Bud Light and Pepsi.

Sentiment for the campaign started very divided with the confusion caused by the uniqueness of the film driving negativity. As people started to debate about the film, sentiment ended up overwhelmingly neutral/positive. The % of negative sentiment today is less than half of what it was just after the spot broke on the Super Bowl. This was something that we were indeed expecting. Press coverage was also largely neutral/positive, with over 3 billion media impressions so far and counting.

When comparing those who watched our spot with those who didn’t, we tracked significantly lifts in several key brand metrics, especially among younger demographics and around the variables we were targeting to shift (like “Cool Brand”).

Although it was never our intention to drive short-term sales through the campaign, we did experience significant lifts in sales in home delivery (record sales with an uplift of around 38%). We cannot disclose total sales results prior to our official Q1’19 earnings.

Finally, almost a week after the Super Bowl people are still talking about the campaign. There is not much chatter around any other Super Bowl spot anymore. But “Eat Like Andy” permeated popular culture. A final example to prove the point is this cartoon for The New Yorker about the State of Union (48 hours after the Super Bowl).

Image 9. “Eat Like Andy” as part of popular culture.