Digital marketing professionals around the world spent the day wincing: first, wincing at how the original tweet was even allowed to go out (the most likely culprit is pressure from upper management or a senior individual who didn’t think things through despite the probable multiple objections by BK’s digital marketing or social media team) then wincing at how things evolved throughout the day before releasing a final wince when the apology was posted.
This campaign is definitely going down in case studies and textbooks as one of “this is what a poorly thought out or executed campaign looks like”. There are going to be dozens of critiques, examinations, op-eds, blog posts, articles, social media posts – and everything in between – over the next coming days.
Let’s see if Burger King can not just weather this storm but actually learn from it so that their next campaign will have a stronger, more positive, and hopefully, more concrete impact.