BK declares peace on McDonald’s M+AD!

Burger King has lit a fire under the global burger business with a “declaration of peace” – a temporary truce with McDonald’s. McDonald’s has yet to respond.

In full-page ads running in The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune on Wednesday – and now in NZ – Burger King, a perennial also-ran in the burger races, has asked McDonald’s, its battered but still potent archrival, to join forces.

Y&R New Zealand helped Burger King to extend the olive branch to McDonald’s in honour of Peace Day.

Burger King is calling for a burger wars ceasefire – a proposal that on Peace Day, Monday 21 September, 2015, the two restaurants set aside their differences and join forces to cook and serve the ‘McWhopper’ – a peace-loving burger that combines all the tastiest ingredients from the McDonald’s Big Mac and the Burger King Whopper.

The McWhopper peace proposal extends a “friendly, no-strings invitation” to McDonald’s to participate in the project, and invites them to visit www.mcwhopper.com to view the full Burger King peace proposal and everything from packaging suggestions to recipe ideas.

Peace Day is a United Nations-recognised annual day of global unity, successfully advocated by the non-profit organisation Peace One Day. Founded in 1999 by Jeremy Gilley, Peace One Day has the ultimate goal of institutionalising a global day of peace.

Burger King is hopeful McDonald’s will accept the offer and collaborate with them to raise awareness and increase at a pop-up McWhopper restaurant in Atlanta – the halfway point between Burger King’s Miami HQ and McDonald’s HQ in Chicago.

In keeping with the global and collaborative spirit of the campaign, Y&R New Zealand has worked with multiple agencies to make the proposal happen – NZ based production companies Assembly, Fish, Liquid Studios and Resn alongside Burger King and its US & global partners ABPR, Code & Theory, DAVID, Horizon, Rock Orange and Turner Duckworth.

Senior vice president for global brand management at Burger King Corporation, Fernando Machado, says the idea is big, bold and “very Burger King”.

“Y&R NZ brought us this audacious concept back in early 2014 and since then this project has been a true collaboration among several agencies based in different locations and our partners from Peace One Day.

“It is great to work on something that is good for the brand and has the potential to positively affect society. We all really hope that the collaboration can now extend to McDonald’s. We have the chance to make history together if they say ‘yes’.

“And if they say ‘no’, at least we raised awareness of Peace Day, which is the ultimate objective of the campaign.”

Y&R CEO/CCO Josh Moore says the campaign is the result of perseverance, late nights, and an 18-month collaboration with the global Burger King marketing team.

“When we first tabled this idea with Burger King we knew it was a long shot – asking a global icon to take their hero product and blend it with that of their biggest competitor.

“But we’ve been totally overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and appetite for big thinking and bold ideas at all levels of Burger King. I only hope McDonald’s jump on board and make this a monumental event in the name of Peace Day. Let’s end the beef, with beef.”

For more information on Burger King’s McWhopper peace proposal visit www.mcwhopper.com and for more information on the objectives of Peace Day visit www.peaceoneday.org.

And here’s the legals, from Burger King’s perspective: Big Mac is a registered trademark of McDonald’s Corporation, which has not authorized this usage nor accepted this proposal. All mentions of “McDonald’s” are references to McDonald’s Corporation. Whopper is a registered trademark of Burger King Corporation. All mentions of “Burger King” are references to Burger King Corporation.

YouTube just posted the McWhopper video to their twitter feed which has 54 million followers. Overnight offshore coverage: