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Facebook disables BK’s Whopper Sacrifice app

By on January 15, 2009 in creativity, love it or hate it?, privacy, viral marketing, word of mouth

Whopper Sacrifice has been sacrificed

Facebook “helps you connect and share with the people in your life.”

But as anyone that has used the service knows, sometimes those connections can become, well, tenuous.

Enter Burger King, who last week saw this as not a problem, but an opportunity to help Facebook users cull the unworthy using an un-friend app at WhopperSacrifice.com.

Leading with the headline “You like your friends, but you love the Whopper,” for every 10 friends you dump, Burger King provides a coupon for one of their signature burgers.

The application went viral, and in one week, 82,000 people deleted over 230,000 friendships on Facebook.

Vince Veneziani of GearFuse had this to say about the app on his blog:

It really wasn’t tough finding ten people on Facebook that I wanted to delete. I just needed a reason and a juicy burger was sufficient enough. This is one of the most twisted, yet delicious, marketing ploys I’ve ever encountered.

Yesterday, Facebook shut the application down citing privacy concerns. According to Inside Facebook, it was because the site “sent a notification to the friend being removed letting them know they were being “sacrificed for a Whopper” before finalizing the removal.”

Here’s Veneziani’s notification page after un-friending 10 of his unfortunate contacts:

Whopper Sacrifice - Vince Veneziani - Gearfuse

Facebook claims the application still exists and will be enabled when the privacy issues are addressed, but clearly, Whopper Sacrifice won’t be nearly as controversial or interesting with the notification disabled.

What do you think?

Do you love or hate the BK app?

In trying to get attention and go viral, did Burger King go too far with the Whopper Sacrifice application, or did Facebook go too far in the name of privacy?

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  • http://toddchandler.blogspot.com Todd

    Facebook made a good call on privacy. The BK campaign still keeps it’s edgy intensity by simply stating “Vincent just sacrificed 10 people for a Whopper.” They don’t need to list out each person who was dumped. I also think it was a great move on BK’s part; the campaign got a lot attention and is in perfect alignment with their brand. Most other brands couldn’t pull this off, but for the home of the Angry Whopper this clear definition of their brand sets them apart.

  • http://kynamdoan.com/ KyNam Doan

    I’m leaning toward the side of net plus ROI. This marketing ploy plays on current trends in social media, costs them very little, and increased buzz. Most of the buzz I’ve heard amounts to confusion over their campaign.

    People don’t yet know what to think of it, consequentially, it’s a blank slate for BK. A followup campaign is in order while eyeballs are still fixated on them.

    It would be an awful waste of time if they do nothing.

  • Jim Warrick

    “I doubt ‘privacy’ was the real issue here. Facebook is built on the idea of a web with six degrees of separation, and this app was a threat to that.

    I think Facebook should spend more time offering features that allow users to customize their page and limit what certain friends have access to, essentially creating different levels of friendship. This might keep users from dumping casual friends for a cheap burger, and refusing to add casual friends to whom they don’t want to reveal too much information.”

  • http://www.dailyaxioms.com Drew Gneiser

    I think this was a bad move by Facebook. First, the application clearly told you that people would know. Secondly, most people just re-friended their friends after qualifying for the Whopper. Obviously, people though this was a creative idea (based on the week’s numbers), so I think they should have kept it up.

  • http://twitter.com/Topsatwarchild James Topham

    This is another lame reaction from Facebook. I don’t really see what it has to do with them if people want to publicly ‘dump’ friends. It was a matter of personal choice. It’s hardly good PR or an encouragement to the advertisers their trying to woo with lexicon.

  • http://www.RyanCrozier.com Ryan Crozier

    This was an EXCELLENT campaign by Burger King! Is doesn’t matter if most people don’t understand it… they were clearly after the Facebook community and it really connected! Even if Facebook removed it… it’s STILL getting them free publicity. To me, it shows they are engaging their customers where we’re at instead of sitting back like those with the Golden Arches! Keep it up BK!

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