Zócalo Group town square blog

South African fast food chain, Wimpy’s, wanted to promote the fact that it has Braille menus available for those who are visually impaired.  What the brand did was both incredibly innovative and heart-warming, all at once.  Using sesame seeds from standard hamburger buns, Wimpy’s spelled out “100% pure beef burger made for you” in Braille.  The reactions, captured on video,of the blind consumers reading the burger bun were priceless – there are laughs and smiles all around.  Wimpy’s video already has well over 500,000 views on YouTube - and this small brand gesture has now reached a global audience.

#BrandHit Learnings:

• You don’t always need big budgets to win over consumers Wimpy took the time to visit three of the top institutions for the blind in South Africa and made only 15 Braille burgers.  With the help of those 15 new advocates, Wimpy’s message was spread to more than 800,000 visually-impaired people across the country.
• Creativity can take many forms Who would have thought a hamburger bun could be so useful?  In an era where creativity can be limitless, take a look at the not-so-traditional.
• Feel free to talk about yourself (a little) We would have never found this creative strategy if not for a video posted to YouTube.  While none of us like complete self-promotion (that’ll turn off consumers for sure), something that’s innovative and cool shouldn’t go unnoticed.

Burger King recently posted a new ad featuring recording artist Mary J. Blige on its YouTube page as part of a larger campaign featuring the likes of Salma Hayek and David Beckham.  Blige was featured singing edited lyrics to her newest single, “Don’t Mind,” crooning about Burger King’s Chicken Snack Wrap and its ingredients.  Almost immediately, fan backlash on blogs, Twitter and YouTube prompted the brand to pull down the video.  Fans were upset at the supposed racial overtones of the commercial, as well as a well-known musician like Blige “shilling” for a brand like Burger King.  In a statement to CNN, Blige said, “I agreed to be a part of a fun and creative campaign that was supposed to feature a dream sequence.  Unfortunately, that’s not what was happening in that clip, so I understand my fans being upset by what they saw.”  It seems, however, that the artist and brand didn’t coordinate on their stories – while Blige claimed the ad was unfinished, Burger King cited licensing issues as the reason for its removal.  They have also since apologized to Blige and her fans for airing the “unfinished” ad.

#BrandMiss Learnings:

• Take the time to think before you post A number of ad execs who have worked in the “pre-internet” era have warned of the cost of the need to create and post ads so quickly.  Strategies move quickly and all angles might not have the chance to be fully baked.  In this fast-paced world we work in, it’s almost always worth the extra time to think about potential reactions before posting.
• Have an escalation plan It’s silly to keep mentioning that social media works at the speed of consumers’ typing fingers, but time and again, we see how quickly a brand can be called out by consumers.  Before any content is posted, brands and their social media teams need concrete processes in place to know what happens in the case of a brand crisis.  This small preemptive tactic can easily make the response process run much more smoothly and take substantially less time, while helping to protect a brand’s positive reputation.