Burger King teases McD's with LinkedIn job post on hiring clown for birthday
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Burger King Belgium is celebrating its fifth anniversary by hiring a clown and it is seeking advice from a brand that would know a thing or two about clowns – McDonald's. To prove that it was not clowning around, Burger King said in a LinkedIn job listing that this is a 24-hour fixed-term contract for the clown to host its anniversary day on 29 June for an undisclosed amount of salary.
While the listing specified that experience in fast food is required, it also clarified that the clown does not need to know how to make Whoppers, the brand's flagship burger. Interestingly, the listing had 12 applicants at the time of writing.
The brand's marketing manager, Vic Dresen, then shared the job post on LinkedIn and asked McDonald's if it knew anybody suitable for the role. Burger King Belgium also shared the same post on its LinkedIn. This was done in collaboration with French creative agency Buzzman.
Buzzman's creative director Tristan Daltroff told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE that it has been five years since the QSR brand moved to Belgium and the team wanted to celebrate this event. "When you're five years old, you want to have a party and have fun. And who better than a clown to take care of it? So, we took it seriously and decided to create a real job offer on the most serious network: LinkedIn," he explained.
While McDonald's has not yet responded, Daltroff said the team hopes Ronald can find some time to make everyone laugh. The team plans to study the real applications carefully and Daltroff added that this is a rather special job offer. "It's in line with Burger King's character and makes you smile so it's positive for our client's brand image and for everyone, especially in the current economic situation," he added.
McDonald is not the only brand that has been targeted by Burger King in its publicity efforts. Two years ago, Burger King also teased Google after YouTube, Gmail, and Google Drive experienced a global outage. In a previous tweet, Burger King said: "Hey Google - have you tried turning it off and on again?", in which this line originates from a British sitcom named The IT Crowd. Several Twitter users found the tweet hilarious, with one user, in particular, telling the QSR brand to "send [Google] some Whoppers to inspire them to work properly" then. Another user joked that Burger King was late as usual, while another played on British humour by saying: "Taking something old and reheating it...tut tut - you should know that is not nice by now" previously.
Meanwhile, Burger King Belgium put a spin to the Olympic Games last year by making consumers the centre of envy rather than athletes. Playing on the idea that athletes bite into their gold medals while standing on the podium of the Olympic Games, the QSR brand offered viewers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games free Whopper burgers when they took a photo or screenshot of an athlete biting into their medal and uploading it on social media with the hashtag #WishItWasAWhopper. At the same time, it created a 35-second video showcasing a series of photo of athletes biting into their medals, and ending with the quote: "This time during the games, you won't envy the athletes. They will envy you."
Speaking of the Whopper, Burger King got creative by launching a campaign in May based on physical surveys done in London, Tokyo, Mexico City, and Stockholm. The brand discovered that only 3% of its participants were able to name burgers on Burger King's menu. Additionally, most failed to name any other burger than the Whopper, where 85% of respondents being able to name the Whopper. However, the failed survey did not deter Burger King from taking advantage of this seemingly dismal situation, as they turned the study's results into a global print and OOH campaign for its flagship burger. Done in collaboration with Swedish ad agency Ingo Stockholm, the campaign launched in Mexico, UK, Brazil, and Ireland, among others.
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