To make change, a brand needs to be the change and that’s exactly what Burger King committed to in 2021. The brand banned 120 non-essential ingredients from their menu because they believe in the realness with every crunch, sizzle, and bite. The brand launched its “Keep It Real Meals” campaign to kickstart this new messaging the night of the VMAs in partnership with Larissa Machado aka Anitta, showcasing the artist’s real-self vs her stage-self. To promote their leveled up food menu, we drove fans to directly purchase the Larissa Machado Real Meal while weaving her debut VMA performance into the frabic of the show, inside and out.
We catapulted Anitta, one of Burger King’s “Keep It Real Meals” talent, into the pop culture zeitgeist by giving her a commercial-time musical performance during the VMAs, helping to familiarize her with the US audience as well as drive live purchase to her one-of-a-kind Larissa Machado Meal via a custom QR code visually featured in her special performance. Kicking off her performance as Larissa and transforming into Anitta halfway through, she performed her signature song, “Girl From Rio”, which served as an ode to her everyday Brazilian realness and her global pop superstar stage persona, that reinforced Burger King’s real messaging.
Anitta’s performance was shared across MTV and talent’s social platforms to drive awareness and consideration for Burger King’s “Keep It Real Meals” product launch. The fan reaction to her performance was overwhelmingly positive that generated 78% emotional reactions with “Joy” being the top shared emotion. Viewers also expressed their excitement to try the Larissa Machado meal. Burger King’s overall VMA program garnered impressive results that were driven by the buzz around Anitta’s performance and its natural alignment to the show:
