NEW YORK — Burger King and Crispin Porter + Bogusky were awarded the Grand Effie Award for their "Whopper Freakout" campaign at the 41st annual Effie Gala in New York, Effie Worldwide has announced.
To coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Whopper, Burger King conducted a social experiment removing the iconic Whopper from the menu. The first phase of the experiment explored deprivation to see what would happen if the burger was removed from the menu without any announcement.
Phase two took the social experiment to another level when, in lieu of the Whopper, customers were given competitors' burgers. Burger King launched a series of TV spots to drive traffic to 'Whopperfreakout.com' where people could view a full-length 8-minute documentary on the experiment. The film was linkable and uploadable to blogs and social networking sites, serving as a catalyst for interaction. As a result of the campaign, Whopper quarterly sales increased by double-digits. (Watch video below.)
Other Grand Effie finalists included:
- Anomaly and Converse for "Domaination"
- DDB Seattle and McDonald's for "Unsnobby Coffee" (See video below.)
- Energy BBDO and Canadian Club for "Damn Right"
- MindShare and Suave and Sprint for "In The Motherhood"
- TBWAChiatDay and Pedigree for Pedigree "Echo"
The Grand Effie winner was selected by a panel of marketers from companies such as Coca Cola, Target and Unilever and from the agencies The Barbarian Group, BBH and Saatchi & Saatchi.
Out of the 24 Gold Effies awarded last night, DDB won 12 Effies, the most of any agency in the competition including three Gold, six Silver and three Bronze trophies. McDonald's was among the 10 brands with at least two Effie wins for DDB's Unsnobby Coffee, including a Gold for Beverages/Non-Alchohol and a Silver for David vs. Goliath.
