Here’s how Burger King stole millions of McDonald’s customers with one genius trick
This one trick made sure McDonald’s didn’t come out kings in the States.
At the end of the last decade, Burger King’s boffins pulled off a sensational trick to literally drive customers out of the McDonald’s restaurants and into their own places.
As explained by Aliff Hossain, fast-food chain managed to steal millions of McDonald’s customers, get 1.5 million app downloads in 9 days, and turn over $6 billion - all by turning McDonald’s locations into weapons against themselves...
With McDonald’s having more locations, more customers and more money, Burger King fought back: they created Whopper Detour.
How Burger King whooped McDonald’s
This genius idea allowed people to grab a Burger King Whopper burger for just 99 cents. All the customer had to do was download the app, turn on their location settings and activate the code.
The best part? This could only be done inside a McDonald’s restaurant. The user’s phone location had to be inside one of the many burger joints across the states, they could then unlock the coupon, at which point the app would direct them to the nearest Burger King restaurant. Despite the good value of McDonald’s burgers, they had been well and truly played.
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McDonald’s could not stop people from participating in the stunt as they had no legal grounds to block people from using their mobile devices in public. With this, Burger King overtook their competitors and became the biggest digital presence in the world of fast food.
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