Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399
Tel 425.882.8080
Fax 425.936.7329
http://www.microsoft.com/
Microsoft Online Services Customer Story: Burger King
“I don’t game on your schedule.”
Becoming the King of the advergames.
Gamers—whether they’re 8 or 38—aren’t interested in how long it usually takes to produce a
robust video game. They want what’s new, and they want it now. So who do you turn to for that
kind of production turnaround? What’s the best way to include some in-game marketing to help
push your product? And how do you make sure that the game’s worth playing, so your users
don’t feel like they’re the ones being played?
Fast food is one thing. Fast video game production is another entirely. But when Equity
Marketing, promotions agency for Burger King, approached Microsoft®, that’s exactly what the
challenge was. They wanted to produce three Burger King-branded Xbox games to sell
exclusively at company locations in North America for only $3.99 each—a fraction of the typical
cost of a retail game—and do it all in less than a year. In addition, they were hoping to create an
experience that would be compelling for the notoriously suspicious gamer audience, while
including a strong marketing push for Burger King’s brand and products. “We knew it was going
to be an ambitious undertaking, but that is the BK way,” says Brian Gies, Vice President of
Marketing Impact for Burger King.
Since advergames are usually relatively simple online experiences, the team at Xbox initially
suggested distributing the Burger King games digitally through Xbox Live® Arcade. Although
somewhat limited in terms of gameplay, online games like these are effective and relatively easy
to create. But Burger King and Equity were thinking on a very different level. They wanted to
produce games that were as robust as full retail games, which can cost gamers as much as sixty
dollars.
Advergame (ad’-ver-gam); n. An electronic game—often low-cost or free—designed to
promote a brand or product.
Gamer (gam’-ur); n. One of the most difficult people in the world to impress.
The solution began with a partnership. “We assembled a great team that we really felt could pull
this off,” says Chris DiCesare, Director of U.S. Brand and Creative Marketing for Microsoft Xbox.
“Blitz Games, out of London, who had done games like Fusion Frenzy, and Crispin Porter +
Bogusky, the ad agency, which has done some of the best advertising work.”
Immediately, the team channeled Burger King’s enthusiasm and high expectations into their own
creative ambition. “Their idea here was ‘We’re not only going to make an advergame. We’re
going to make the best advergame that’s ever been made and make it so fun that people don’t
even register that it’s an advergame,’” says Kevin Hathaway, Program Manager for Microsoft
Xbox.
Of course, it took a lot of hard work by a lot of people at each of the partner companies to put the
games together, from design to programming to testing and beyond. “It was intense—it was such
a multi-fronted campaign, and there were so many elements that needed to be coordinated,” says
Hathaway. The Microsoft Xbox team led the process, facilitating the interaction between the
project partners, contributing industry knowledge and best practices, and participating hands-on
at many stages of game development.
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399
Tel 425.882.8080
Fax 425.936.7329
http://www.microsoft.com/
The in-game advertising market is expected to reach $732 million by 2010. 1
To the delight of everyone on the team, the finished products were even greater than the sum of
their parts—robust, retail-level games with terrific gameplay, rich scenarios and environments,
and one of the oddest takes ever on a corporate icon. “We had done things that really took
advantage of the quirkiness of what the Burger King brand represented through their King
character,” says DiCesare.
Yet even when the games were completed and hit the market, no one knew exactly what would
happen. Would fickle gamers respond to the edgy design and big gameplay of the titles, or would
the marketing angle of the games prove too much for their skepticism? And could Burger King
live up to—and capitalize on—whatever buzz was generated by these unexpected marketing
vehicles?
A full retail game can take two to three years to produce. Burger King needed three of
them in nine months.
The answer was a resounding yes, says DiCesare. “Burger King did a phenomenal job marketing
this campaign. It was everywhere—basically, they blanketed the United States.” From behind-thescenes television commercials to appearances on audience-relevant programming and a
dynamic point-of-purchase display strategy, the King was everywhere—an outbound effort that
matched the work that had gone into the games.
The results of the teams’ combined efforts made just as much noise. The typical benchmark for a
successful video game is selling 1 million units worldwide. The Xbox games, an immediate hit
with customers, reached sales of 3.2 million units in about six weeks, making headlines for the
Burger King brand and contributing to a dramatic quarterly earnings spike for the company. The
impressive sales were an indication that the gamers had been convinced, and even the hard-toconvince Internet cognoscenti sat up and took notice. “Bloggers kind of went crazy about it,” says
Aramis Israel, Art Director at Crispin Porter + Bogusky.
“We had to challenge convention, and Xbox did it like pros.”
—Brian Gies, Vice President, Marketing Impact, Burger King
And the promotion may have reached its crowning achievement—at least among its core
audience—when YouTube began featuring clips of a fan, dressed as the King, sneaking around
and surprising unsuspecting strangers with moves from the game.
These successes underscore the potential of advergames as marketing tools. In comparison to a
30-second television commercial, which many viewers might ignore, a vehicle like the Burger
King advergames has a brand as its central focus, and can engage its target audience for hours
at a time. The big results also point to the strength of the team and process that Microsoft had the
reach and vision to organize. “Could advergaming in a style like this be done again? Yes, but it
has to be the right partners to pull it off,” says DiCesare. Burger King’s Brian Gies agrees: “We
had to challenge convention, and Xbox did it like pros.”
For more information, visit www.microsoft.com.
1 Source:
Yankee Group