Friday, January 9th, 2009...9:23 AM
Burger King and FaceBook Team for Sacrifice App
It’s a common problem for anyone who joined Facebook some time ago. You look at your friend list and wonder who these people are. Facebook obviously thinks that it is a problem and they have created a sponsored application to induce members to delete friends that are not really your friends.
Burger King has released the Whopper Sacrifice application on Facebook. The app rewards people with a coupon for BK’s signature burger when they cull 10 friends. Each time a friend is excommunicated, the application sends a notification to the banished party via Facebook’s news feed explaining that the user’s love for the unlucky soul is less than his or her zeal for the Whopper. The app also adds a box to user profile pages charting their progress toward the free burger with the line, “Who will be the next to go?” The application is available on Facebook and at WhopperSacrifice.com.
You would think that the notion of dumping friends in exchange for a burger could offend some and it might. I have already signed up and used the app. It is a little slow and I am hoping Facebook addresses this. I dropped a number of friends and sure enough already offended someone. If it takes hold though this could stimulate much chatter online, at the water cooler and spread the word by way of mouth for Burger King.
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January 15th, 2009 at 8:31 AM
I’m pretty happy that this app. got banned by facebook. Other than my opinions about it being silly and offensive, it works against the social networking principle of creating connections. Didn’t anyone in BK’s campaign office think “gee, asking facebook users to reduce the size of their networks may make facebook unhappy” afterall, people connecting on facebook the basis of their revenue model, and this app worked directly against that.
January 15th, 2009 at 9:03 AM
I have to admit that it was a puzzle. I thought maybe Facebook wanted this app to “clean up” what is a burgeoning list of connections that are really not true connections. So the BK sponsoring of an app with a product was a match. The whole thing was not positive though. Brands like to create memorable approaches to this but I think maybe it was an agency living too far on the edge seeking this type of notoriety? Not too sure.
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