Digital Frontiers

You didn't like those 10 people anyway

Would you give up your friendship with your best friend for a hamburger? No? What about your second-best friend? Probably not. But what about your 600th-best friend, or the pretty girl you met at that conference that you never really spoke to again? It sounds kind of harsh, but let’s face it: facebook friends are a dime a dozen, and whoppers aren’t even on the dollar menu.

This was the thinking behind the Whopper Sacrifice, an ill-fated marketing campaign for Burger King’s flagship artery-clogger. Add the app, unfriend ten people through its interface, and you get a coupon for a free burger. Sounds great, right? Many facebook users have dozens of “friends” with whom they never interact. These “friends” probably wouldn’t have even noticed the difference, except that the app notified them that they had been ditched. Facebook took offense to this (usually there is no notification when “friendships” are ended) and demanded that Burger King stop the notifications. Instead, they ended the campaign prematurely after only one week, despite its massive popularity.

In all, 82,000 people ended 230,000 friendships in a week, all in pursuit of a free sandwich. This campaign got tons of attention for Burger King, so on that end it has to be counted a success, regardless of its early termination. The real loser here was facebook. They had an opportunity to prove that real buzz could be created using their system, and instead shut down a popular program. Now, facebook is still working to show that it is an effective advertising tool. The idea was somewhat harsh, but users could immediately re-friend those they sacrificed, and the overall response was positive (3.6/5 stars on the app’s page). Facebook sacrificed evidence of their marketing punch, and they didn’t even get a free whopper.

The application was successful because its users found it both amusing and beneficial, and it spread virally through its notifications and their statuses. Burger King was creative enough to provide the method for its customers to excite each other about the product, and they did the rest. This is a great example of converting consumers into producers, and it shows one of the biggest strengths of user-generated content: it’s free! In this case, Burger King paid its advertising agencies for the idea, but the huge buzz was created by the users of the app.

User-generated content is efficient and effective because it allows passionate users to augment your business’s own content, but its biggest strengths are also its biggest drawbacks. If any voice can be heard, users feel more involved, but credibility suffers. If you encourage feedback, you expose yourself to the risk of negative reviews. It’s free or cheap, but sometimes you get what you pay for.

Just don't get too carried away

Regardless of the risks, user-generated content has become a big part of the business world, and it’s only getting bigger. People expect the ability to contribute now, and they use it in ways that usually benefit the companies that provide the means. It’s important to listen and respond to your customers (like Comcast does on twitter) to prevent bad press, and it can be extremely powerful to use them as the resource they are (see wikipedia). As time goes on, expect to see more advertising campaigns try to create buzz on the level of the Whopper Sacrifice, and expect to see more companies monitor and respond to their social networking presence (only 29% do so regularly!). This is the dawning of the age of the user.

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