In April 2006, Burger King partnered with Xbox to produce a series of short, high-quality, engaging games that it could sell en masse at a reduced price through its nationwide restaurant chain. The games had to appeal to the highly desirable 18- to 34-year-old male gaming audience—an audience that spends an average of 20 hours a week playing video games.
Burger King clearly saw tremendous results from this unique campaign. Since the December 2006 release, game sales have topped 3.2 million. The games, which were originally priced at $3.99 a piece, have even appeared on eBay for the price of $25 per pack, with some buyers living as far away as the U.K. A spokesman for the chain added that the campaign had caused store traffic to double in comparison to the previous year.
Burger King gained essential positive brand association from the campaign, as evidenced by the fact that the Burger King games have outsold top-selling Xbox 360 titles.
The campaign also helped increase awareness of using video games as an advertising medium in general. According to a recent panel of experts at the Online Media, Marketing & Advertising Conference (OMMA) in New York, the games are relatively inexpensive to produce and distribute.
“The success of the campaign surprised everybody,” said Philip Oliver, CEO of the UK-based Blitz Games and developer of the Burger King games. “Nobody expected the games to be as rich, as engaging, as diverse as they turned out to be. And they got consumers excited about the Burger King brand, which was of course, the intent of the exercise.”
