What would people choose if they had to pick between Facebook friends and a Whopper?
A recent advertising campaign by Burger King offered Facebook users a 37 cent coupon towards a free Whopper if they deleted 10 friends. Rejected friends then receive a message that they’ve been removed for a sandwich, spreading the word about the Whopper.
According to the application’s Web site, which was operated by the fast-food chain, 233,906 friendships were sacrificed before the advertising campaign ended last week.
Sam Kirkland, a Medill sophomore, used the application and is waiting for his coupon to arrive in the mail.
“I was surprised because I thought it’d be hard to pick 10 people,” he said. “Once I got down to the B’s, I already had 10 candidates to get rid of.”
Others, however, had stronger attachments to their Facebook friends.
“I laughed pretty hard about it at first,” said Liz Yates, a Weinberg freshman. “Hopefully, all my Facebook friends are worth more than 37 cents.”
According to an article in the Chicago Tribune on Jan. 16, Facebook discontinued Whopper Sacrifice because it violated the privacy of its users.
Joseph Wooldridge, a sophomore at Butler Community College in Kansas, created the Facebook network called “Whopper Sacrifice” to bring Whopper lovers together.
“Removing friends never turned out to be much of a problem, because you can immediately refriend them,” Wooldridge wrote in an e-mail. “Burger King knows this, and has stated the point of the application wasn’t to make everyone friendless, but to cause interaction between them over the application.”
According to Wooldridge, the application was successful until Burger King halted the advertising campaign.
“Nearly 24,000 people got a free Whopper out of the deal, which means that 240,000 people ended up learning about it,” he said. “That’s a lot of publicity for creating a very simple Facebook application.”
Wooldridge added that the advertising premise of Whopper Sacrifice was that people would bring their coupon to Burger King and buy fries or soda along with their free burger, putting money into Burger King’s pocket.
Although Burger King’s new advertising tactics seem strange and contradictory, they have been effective.
“It’s going to get me into Burger King and I’ll get my Whopper. So, it worked,” said Kirkland. “And honestly I don’t see how anyone would be offended by (being defriended on Facebook). I think most people that you defriend are people you don’t know that well anyway.”
Wooldridge said Facebook users in the network have contacted him suggesting they start a petition to bring back Whopper Sacrifice.
