Burger King Lets Gulf Communities 'Have It Their Way'

Burger King has put a new twist on regional cause-related marketing with a just-completed campaign that plays off its "Have It Your Way" brand promise.

Instead of the typical scenario in which the brand selects a cause to support, BK put Louisiana residents in the driver's seat by having them nominate, campaign and vote for their own favorite causes.

"Campaign For Your Cause" offered non-profit civic organizations and schools in New Orleans and Baton Rouge the opportunity to win a portion of a total BK donation pool of $200,000 ($100,000 per city).

In the first phase, which ran from mid-April through the end of May, all Louisiana residents over the age of 13 were eligible to nominate a cause. In phase two, June through mid-July, residents voted for one of the 10 organizations within each city that had received the most nominations.

The number of votes received by each organization determined the donation amount that it received. The top vote-getter in each city was awarded $50,000, the second-place winner $25,000, the third-place winner $11,000, and fourth- through tenth-place winners each received $2,000.

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The winning nonprofits, announced this week, ranged from schools to hospitals to a local Boy Scout council and a YMCA, plus foundations devoted to everything from animal welfare to environmental causes.

With the region still very much struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina, every type of organization is in need of assistance--making BK's premise of letting residents themselves determine the winners a perfect fit with its brand message.

"The program was our way of fulfilling our duty to be good corporate social partners and give back to the communities we serve," says Melissa Sabathier, marketing director for Strategic Restaurants, the main BK franchisee in the two cities, which worked with New Orleans-headquartered Zehnder Communications in creating and implementing the effort. "The accompanying benefit for us was that this was another way to bring the brand promise of 'having it your way' to the community."

The campaign kicked off with PR efforts in each city, including press interviews with BK spokespeople. But grassroots efforts used to create viral activity were the main focus, according to Amy Mahfouz, New Orleans public relations director for Zehnder. During the launch, BK and Zehnder reached out to the state's nonprofit umbrella organizations for their support in spreading the word to their networks of nonprofits and helping drive traffic to the campaign's site (campaignforyourcause.com).

Once nominated, organizations were encouraged to campaign to their supporters. The site featured a "tell a friend" button enabling people to easily pass the news about the campaign on via emails, and each nominated group was assigned its own code for text messaging.

Some supporters sent daily mass e-mails or text messages to their address books to remind their friends that they could register one vote per day on the site. Others used MySpace and Facebook pages and community events to help their causes win. "People were amazingly creative," says Mahfouz.

In addition, BK provided each nominated nonprofit with campaign kits that included yard signs, bumper stickers, shirt stickers, wristbands and other materials. All materials were personalized with the organization's name, as well as bearing the official "Campaign for Your Cause" logo (in which BK's own logo is discreetly embedded).

Regional media were also responsive, helping to get the word out during the launch phase, reporting on the 20 nominees and covering the final voting results and award amounts, according to Mahfouz.

In all, the massive supporter activity generated over 130,000 nominations of 4,100 organizations, and over 589,000 votes across the 20 nonprofits during the run-off phase. "We were completely blown away by the level of the success," sums up Sabathier. BK is exploring the possibility of conducting "Campaign for Your Cause" again in 2008, according to Mahfouz.

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