Burger King New AR Campaign Aims to Have Players Fleeing McDonald's in Germany

Inspired with the recently-released IT Chapter Two movie, Burger King Germany invites BK app users dining at McDonald's to play an augmented reality (AR) game that populates the restaurant with red balloons and prompts them to get to the nearest Burger King within a time limit to get a 1-cent Whopper.

A not-coincidental side effect of running to get the almost-free Whopper was to have the player basically flee the McDonald's restaurant.

Basically, the way it works is Burger King ran an ad in McDonald's movie magazine (apparently, they give you reading material at McDonald's in Germany and they put out about 800,000 copies a month) that invites readers to play an augmented reality game with a 1-cent Whopper up for grabs. Using geo-targeting, the app prompts users that were in the vicinity of a McDonald's restaurant to scan the BK ad in the magazine to start the game and "escape the clown" (and red balloons) by taking refuge at the nearest BK restaurant.

Here's the concept in action:

And here's Burger King's simplified instructions for the game:

"1. Download the Burger King App now
2. Head to our competitors with the big gold M
3. Grab the movie magazine and scan page 5
4. Hurry down to Burger King
5. Enjoy your Whopper for just 1 cent"

Besides being a marketing stunt, the stated goal of the campaign is to drive traffic to Burger King restaurants and get customers to sign up for the BK mobile app.

Photo via Burger King Germany.