Burger King is one of the world’s most famous challenger fast food brands, vastly outspent by category leader McDonald’s. The challenge for the brand is to find areas to stand out in a noisy, competitive environment, taking particular advantage of key moments to cut through at the right place, at the right time.

With the world’s eyes on the UK for the King’s coronation, the brand wanted to leverage its reputation for cheeky, self-deprecating communications by maximising on its link with the name ‘King’, appearing playfully alongside relevant content to elevate the brand’s image and engagement. While Burger King mostly targets 16-34-year-olds, the brand was keen to drive broader awareness, so the coronation was an ideal opportunity to position the Burger King brand at the heart of the nation.

With many people wanting to experience the excitement of the coronation, Burger King knew there would be an increase in London Tube travel. The brand decided to focus media activity on news brands due to their scaled reach, trust and credibility. Campaigns including news brands were identified as demonstrably more effective (32%) overall compared to campaigns that didn’t use news brands (IPA Databank study).

In addition, Burger King was seeking a partner with good public transport presence. Metro was planning to provide extensive coverage of the event, delivering the perfect environment to reach both those on the move in London and a significant portion of the rest of the UK. In advance of the big day, the Metro team confidently shared it was expecting the biggest volume uplift in the market by sharing stats on previous royal events, such as that one in four people were interested in buying a special edition newspaper – this promised Burger King great exposure.

The campaign focused on maximising fame and reach through disruptive formats. Burger King created a standout advert guaranteed to appear on the coronation spread. The creative changed the brand’s famous logo to read simply ‘King’ and played on the sandwich image by sandwiching coronation news and images. An inside front cover was secured to maximise impressions of the creative. The news brand campaign was combined with large format out of home activity.

The campaign was a short sharp burst of activity aligning with a key cultural moment, with the brand earning recognition for honouring its namesake by sandwiching relevant copy around its famous bun logo. The creative engaged the audience with a clearly identifiable Burger King advert, whilst providing a respectful ‘nod’ to the incoming King. Burger King was cleverly aligned with this culturally unifying moment.