As part of our ongoing social retainer with Burger King UK, we are always looking for proactive and reactive opportunities to get the brand noticed on Twitter.
Our ultimate goal is always the same: to create a moment in popular culture and get Burger King UK trending on Twitter.
Friday, August 12th, will go down in history as the day Newcastle United goalkeeper Nick Pope broke the internet, but not for his on-field performance.
It started as a simple poll, posted by the Coolr Burger King UK social team, asking fans what was better ‘tomato or gherkin’. This triggered a Twitter meltdown and sparked a viral cultural moment.
Fuelled by Newcastle fan account @ToonPolls, our ordinary tweet unleashed a Twitter storm which we were able to blow up even bigger and play to our advantage.
In a matter of just six and a half hours, Nick Pope became an internet sensation, Burger King UK was the number one trend on Twitter, mentions and positive sentiment of Burger King UK went through the roof, while hundreds of brands got in on the action, and the story spilled over into the national press.
Our strategy was to make Burger King UK part of everyday popular culture and get involved in a social conversation - which isn’t overly branded and goes beyond burgers and food.
The tweet that started it all: As part of our hub content for Burger King UK, we posted a poll at 1.28pm on Friday, August 12th, asking fans to vote for which was better: tomato or gherkin? So far, so normal.
A left field response: @ToonPolls, a Twitter account run by zealous Newcastle United Football Club supporters with 21,000 followers, responded with an alternative option ‘Nick Pope’, referencing the NUFC goalkeeper
This opened the floodgates, triggering a deluge of replies from fans tweeting ‘Nick Pope’, filling Burger King UK’s comments. In just two hours, Burger King UK had attracted 1M impressions on Twitter.
Building momentum: We knew our simple poll was blowing up into something big but we wanted it to be bigger! We notified Burger King and successfully connected with the admins at @ToonPolls, Newcastle United Football Club, as well as Nick Pope’s agent, asking them to Quote Tweet Burger King UK and suggesting ideas to build momentum. We kept in contact with them throughout the remainder of the day, looking for opportunities to build on the moment.
Burger King UK riposte: Shortly after 3pm, we tweeted ‘Nick Pope’ in a message that garnered more than 3,000 likes and 500 retweets in less than an hour. This tweet alone attracted 4M impressions and 155K engagements!
Brands jump on the bandwagon: Hundreds of brands, including Domino’s, Specsavers, easyjet, Dunelm, Amazon and Quality Street saw the opportunity and all got in on the act, tweeting ‘Nick Pope’.
Newcastle United responds: at 5.37pm NUFC quote tweeted Burger King garnering 443K impressions and 11,444 engagements
Nick Pope joins in: The best was yet to come when at 8.14pm, just six and a half hours after the original poll Tweet was posted by Burger King UK, Nick Pope tweeted ‘Nick Pope’. We had come full circle! This tweet attracted 157.3K likes.
A total of 46,500 people tweeted ‘Nick Pope’ when Burger King UK and Nick Pope were trending on Twitter
National press: The quirky trending moment spilled over into the press, with a clean sweep of earned media, including Daily Mail, The Sun, Indy, Evening Standard, BBC, ITV, SkySports and Daily Star to name a few. It had become the ultimate water cooler moment and boosted the activity WAY beyond social, with extensive mentions in some of the UK’s biggest dailies.
August 12th was a big day for Nick Pope (!) but an even bigger day for Burger King UK. We smashed all our objectives, from making Burger King part of everyday culture, to trending on Twitter.
Burger King UK (and Nick Pope) trended at Number #1 on Twitter
Burger King UK trended at Number #9 on Twitter global trends
The activity attracted 136M impressions
Burger King UK saw a mind-blowing 10,570% increase in mentions (week on week)
The Burger King UK Twitter account added 5.7k followers (usual monthly increase = 500 followers)
Positive sentiment for Burger King increased by 252%
For Walkers, Dreams and Deliveroo, tweeting ‘Nick Pope’ resulted in their biggest organic tweet of the year
Oh and for the record, gherkin came out on top in the poll, taking 52.5% of the 14,047 votes cast.
