Marketing a challenger brand

In this episode, Laura Halliday and co-host Adam Rowles discuss some of Burger King’s most impactful marketing campaigns with Katie Evans, Chief Marketing Officer of Burger King UK. 

Operating in the highly competitive UK quick service restaurant sector, Katie shares how Burger King behaves like a challenger brand to create maximum impact with its communications versus its competitors with much larger media budgets. 

She talks about the roles of authenticity, agility and insight in starting meaningful conversations with the public. And she reflects on Burger King UK’s latest campaign ‘Bundles of Joy’ which featured mums eating Burger King after birth – where the conversation took on a life of its own…

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Transcript

Adam: This is the Persuasion Game, the Forge’s podcast all about the art of persuasion. Each episode we connect with marketers, business leaders and beyond to learn how they use persuasion to influence their customers, convince their stakeholders and drive their businesses forward.

Laura: Hello. I am still Laura Halliday, but today you are not Simon Garnett.

Adam: I am not. I am Adam Rowles, the producer of the Persuasion Game podcast, who’s normally sat on the other side of the desk – standing in for Simon today.

Laura: Adam, are you a burger man?

Adam: Do you know what, I am a burger man. Burgers are at the top of my list when it comes to takeaway, special meals. I love eating all sorts of different burgers — everything from the fastest of fast food to the most gourmet. It’s the first thing I look at on the menu when I go into a pub or a restaurant or a takeaway. I really am a burger man, it’s true.

Laura: It’s kind of a litmus test isn’t it — if somewhere’s good, like “oh they have good burgers here.”

Adam: Absolutely. And so many places have great burgers now. I’m a huge fan of where the trends have taken us into smash burgers and sliders — like smaller, more snackable burgers.Yeah, I mean I could talk about burgers for a long time clearly, which is good news for today. How about you?

Laura: I once ate 13 burgers in seven days. I was under 10 in mitigation, but yeah, fair to say I’m a fan.

Adam: And where were you when you ate these 13 burgers?

Laura: I was in Disney World. So you can be sure they were nothing but the finest quality.

Adam: Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Okay, so perfect tee-up for today.

Laura: For this episode we’re really excited to have Katie Evans, the Chief Marketing Officer of Burger King UK joining us. Katie has a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities in this highly competitive category, and with a marketing strategy that consistently disrupts consumer behaviour and sparks conversation, we know we’re going to learn a lot today. Welcome Katie.

Katie: Hi.

Adam: Welcome, we are thrilled to have you here with us today Katie. Perhaps you could share a little bit about your background and how you came to this role at Burger King.

Katie: Sure. I was lucky enough to start out in the Dunnhumby grad programme a million years ago.

Laura: The brain boxes

Katie: the analysts were definitely the brain boxes, and I had a lot to learn. But yeah, I was lucky enough to start out there in a world of insight and consumer behaviour — all of the things that I was super interested in through uni. I got to work on new brands, new exciting small clients like Innocent and slightly bigger ones like Warburtons and Weetabix, and take those insights to the brand teams and give them the ammunition and support they needed to get new products listed or launch brand plans.
But, for me, I really wanted to be part of one of those brand teams — I really wanted to get in the mix and actually apply the insight and develop the strategy and the campaigns. So that was my goal post-Dunnhumby. I moved from there to Heinz for a very short space of time, which was super interesting — working on frozen, a bit of Aunt Bessies. And then I went from there to Krispy Kreme, which I just passed on my way here actually.

Adam: Amazing — the iconic Krispy Kreme. And you were there at its inception right?

Katie: I wasn’t quite there at the inception but I was there very early on. It was already in Harrods and was on a big new store openings programme. It was all about establishing the brand identity in the UK and what it meant. Really interesting – first time I’d ever managed a PR agency or creative agency, so completely new for me. But brilliant – I was there four years, absolutely loved it.

And then moved on to Gourmet Burger Kitchen, when I first got into the burger world. Again that was a big brand identity development – we did a lot of DNA work, developed a strategy, did some fairly punchy campaigns for our time. That gave me a bit of a taste of things to come. Really exciting growth time in casual dining in the UK. And yeah, from there joined Burger King back in 2018.

Laura: So the QSR and particularly the burger category is a really interesting one — it’s not something everyone listening will know about. Can you tell us a little bit about the dynamics of the category?

Katie: Yeah sure. It is a long-established category, certainly in the QSR sector, and it’s very very competitive. The really interesting piece for me in the QSR space is that the audience is so so broad. Everyone has an experience at one of the burger operators or one of the fast food chains — it’s part of your life in some way, whether it’s a quick trip on the way home from the pub, or something that you start your holiday with in the airport, or on a road trip. And actually you visit quite frequently because it provides good value for money. It’s a really really broad audience. And I think that makes it super interesting for us because we are speaking to a really broad group of consumers with different needs, but we have the opportunity to develop a menu that really suits those different types and what they’re looking for.

I think the casual dining space absolutely exploded back in my GBK days — the burger wars were certainly on with the American entrants coming in and the UK brands like GBK and Byron. It was really exciting times, and it was something very very simple that suddenly had queues around the door for people to come in.

Laura: It was a great time to be a consumer. What a time to be alive.

Katie: I know. But it’s really interesting for us because in our experience as a brand we are quite recession-proof in that we have an opportunity to flex our menu to suit those differing needs. At a time when the macroeconomic climate is difficult and there’s a cost of living crisis, we definitely saw many people trading out of that casual dining space — being quite selective with their eating out, looking for experiences for that eating out occasion — but trading into more quick service and fast casual for that everyday need. Or delivery, obviously, which has grown hugely in that time. And we still play a role there and can offer something at the more premium end with Angus and some of our premium provenance lead builds that satisfies that appetite or that treat. So yeah, a very interesting, dynamic, hugely competitive category.

So I guess the challenge of the category is — how do you drive consideration among your consumers? How do you stay front of mind and get them to choose you?

Laura: Yes, that’s the interesting piece isn’t it — people are aware of your brand, but changing the dial to actually get people to say “I’m going to choose Burger King” — to really have that challenger mindset even when you’re very well established — is quite a unique challenge.

Katie: Yeah absolutely. And I think that is one of — when it is highly competitive, access to the brand is so important. We have around 500 restaurants in the UK and our closest competition have three times that. So obviously you need to be seen and you need that brand presence. But something like delivery suddenly unlocks a route to the consumer that wasn’t necessarily there before, or wasn’t there twenty years ago. So you have ways to get there, but equally you need to be part of that consideration, become a favourite. And obviously your strategy is built around — how do we do that? How do we cut through, especially in a very noisy category and a category where there’s a huge amount of investment in media? We don’t necessarily have that same budget. So it’s all about how do we find ways to cut through, how do we find interesting and differentiated ways to engage our consumer.

Adam: Well, your campaigns really do that – you start conversations, those conversations can take on a life of their own. What is the role of using conversation and that challenger status to punch above your weight in terms of media spend?

Katie: I think on the one hand it’s a bit of a necessity in my role — we need to drive consideration, we need to be heard, we need to be seen. And I guess I’ve been lucky enough to join a brand that is creatively brave historically. Global campaigns you will have seen that creative bravery coming to the fore, and I think it has given a level of permission to be brave in that way.

But from my perspective it has to be relevant to the consumer — we have to have a right to play in that space, it has to be grounded in an insight and part of our strategy. So it needs to link back to what is it we’re trying to do. And I guess the conversations that it sparks are excellent — that’s exactly what we want to happen. But we need to be sure that what we’re communicating very clearly links back to our brand and is not just being noisy or provocative for the sake of it. It has to be grounded in a level of insight, but also a brand strength, and for us to know that we have a role in that conversation or in that cultural space.

Laura: So you’ve talked a little bit about the underlying strategy that underpins a lot of the tactics you go for and I think you call it “food-filment” — is that right?

Katie: That’s right.

Laura: Can you tell us a little bit about food-filment?

Katie: So food-filment was a piece of work that we started last year. It obviously isn’t a word — we hope it is now. But food-filment was very much grounded in an insight around that ultimate food satisfaction. We did a lot of research — we spoke to a really broad church of consumers, our consumers and competitor consumers, to really understand what is it that they feel when they experience a BK. And it came down to — the definition we developed to summarise what was being said was — that kind of warm, fuzzy feeling of total food satisfaction.

And that is something we believe is unique to Burger King. Our hero iconic product is the Whopper — Whopper means big, it’s unashamedly big, it’s a bold product. There’s a reason it’s been on our menu for so long. It’s everything that we believe epitomises our brand in terms of big bold flavours, fresh ingredients, made to order.

However, I think that food-filment piece is not just about the Whopper — it’s about all aspects of our menu and that sense that for different people, food-filment is not just about size. It’s also about that feeling of getting great quality at the right price, good value for money, and going away with that very satisfied feeling.

So the campaign — that’s the platform for our strategy. We started earlier this year with our food-filment campaign, three different TV ads that we continue to roll, and it continues to develop from there.

Adam: So talking of food-filment — your most recent campaign with post-labour mothers really took on a life of its own on marketing LinkedIn. How do you manage that when a campaign really captures a conversation point in the public?

Katie: Well look, any campaign we run — any campaign any brand runs — goes out there and lives a life of its own. It’s all about the public or consumer perception of that piece of work. In this case we wanted to run this campaign because it was grounded in a very real insight that we found — with many examples and images of mums tucking into a burger post-birth, and that real kind of hunger that sits with many mums after anything from sixteen to, you know, thirty-something hours of labour.

Laura: 52  — she said pointedly to her . Sixteen feels short.

Adam: 56.

Laura: But you didn’t do it.

Adam: I didn’t do it, I was there though.

Laura: Sorry, apologies listeners.

Katie: Yeah, it was a very real insight. And for us it was something that we had seen a few years ago, but with this platform of food-filment and that ultimate hunger and food satisfaction, it felt really appropriate. We wanted to capture the moment in a very real, authentic way — we didn’t stage it, there was no photo shoot. These were real images taken by the partners of the women involved. And everything we do as a brand is incredibly authentic, it’s very real. And this just felt like a very good representation of a moment of fulfilment.

I think the conversation and the debate it sparked was unexpected. We expected it to drive yes, some conversation and some reaction, but not the debate around what a woman should or shouldn’t be eating post-birth, or how capable she was of making her own decisions. That was unexpected for all of us. But super interesting to see what a cultural topic it drove, particularly on LinkedIn — and it started there but then moved into national press, and from there into Instagram. It was really interesting to see almost the dialogue that was going on, that was related to the topic but kind of building on it and taking it in a new direction.

Laura: So actually you’re seeing a lot of mum influencers responding to what they saw as strands of a patriarchal response, making comedy with that and really playing with this idea in a way that’s far beyond what your original conversation was about. How do you guys feel about that — when a conversation evolves beyond what you’ve set up, how comfortable are you with letting it live in the wild like that?

Katie: I think in this scenario we were very comfortable. It was really intriguing to see how the conversation played out. Clearly we were following it closely and not needing to jump in — that wasn’t really our role. Once we released the ad, that’s it. It’s not really our role to jump into that conversation because your perception of the ad is not in our control. But the intention was very much to capture that real moment and it all tied back to our platform and our strategy around food-filment.
I think it is great to be part of a cultural debate. It is great to show up on a topic where people have an opinion and they want to share that. Any brand wants to be part of a conversation, as long as it’s the right conversation. And actually the conversation that played out didn’t really have a huge amount to do with us — it took on a life of its own.

But I also saw a huge amount of positive feedback, and the sentiment was majority positive. We were celebrating this moment, which felt for many of the women who commented like a very real representation of that hunger. It may not have been a burger in every case — NHS toast seemed to play a big role for some, it was sushi for others. We don’t sell sushi so that’s obviously not what we were going to show! But for some it’s burgers and it just captured and tapped into a moment that many many related to.

Laura: I think what I hadn’t appreciated was that these are real photos taken by the partners — this is not an art-directed piece. And it felt like that was really reflected in the positive responses, but even in the less positive ones it was like “oh this is too intimate” — and it felt like, well, you’ve actually got some authenticity there haven’t you. You’ve really captured something that’s not stage-managed. How important is that kind of authenticity to your brand and what are the other ways that you seek to communicate it?

Katie: I think it’s about — we always talk about real food, real people. We have obviously recorded adverts with actors involved at times, it’s not always like this. But I think where we can, it’s quite nice to represent reality. And I think for many people, if you look across social media now, some of the most loved and most engaged posts are very real user-generated content — not the airbrushed, polished, perfect images we would have seen in the past. So I think there is a generation of people who respond well to that very real representation. We don’t do it all of the time, but you know when we engage in reactive PR or things like that, it’s naturally very real and authentic, and that’s the route we take.

Laura: Now, being a very cynical strategist, I looked at that campaign and I thought about how well it tapped into lots of cultural conversations that we see happening at the moment — women’s positivity, our hero NHS, showing things that are sort of real and raw. And I wonder how much was it about identifying those trends and saying “we want to be part of that conversation,” or was it something different?

Katie: No — it was not about looking at that trend. What has played out makes it look like that’s where we started, but actually we started with the insight that came from seeing images being shared on social media of women enjoying a burger post-birth. That is where it started. We saw it some years ago and we revisited it off the back of the food-filment platform because for us it represented this very real human truth — that hunger post-birth.

And I guess what played out from there shows that it absolutely did tap into a trend around how women feel about themselves and how in control they feel or should feel about what they eat and when they eat it. But it was not the intention — it was not a trend-led piece at all. And I think sometimes brands do that very very well, but how we executed the campaign — by being confident enough to show those real images — I think that probably inadvertently played into a comfort that people have now with seeing that real, authentic view, and not always seeing this perfectly polished representation of how it should look when you’ve just had a baby.

Laura: Super refreshing.

Adam: Have you got anything you can share about the success of the campaign and how it cut through with the public?

Katie: Well it certainly drove talkability, buzz and conversation. The sentiment was majority positive which is important, but there was a lot of neutrality around the campaign as well. It drove conversation and a focus on the brand, and we were part of that conversation to a certain extent, even if the online communities seemed to police themselves. But at this stage it’s very much a brand campaign — we will see over time what impact it has.

Laura: I think what I loved as well is it really drove awareness of the Whopper, which seems to have been a real force in Burger King UK’s strategy for a long time. “Don’t forget about the Whopper.” And you look at the size of it, you look at the hunger on the face — it definitely makes you remember the hero product.

Katie: Yeah, and Whopper will always be a big part of our strategy. It is our icon, it represents our strength. So yeah, there is more to come — we’ve got more planned for next year on Whopper as well, so we’re excited about that.

Laura: Fantastic. So it’s clear there’s a really robust strategy that everybody is very much aligned behind, but at the same time you’re acting in a very agile way and turning around ideas, responses, executions very quickly — sometimes as short as eight weeks, for things like the Meltdown for example. Could you tell us a little bit about some of the work you’ve done and the ethos behind it?

Katie: Yeah, I would say agility is definitely one of our strengths. We are a relatively small team — I won’t share the numbers, but I think people would be surprised how small our teams are. And I guess it has always felt a little bit like a startup mentality but with the keys to a very big brand. We have over 98% brand awareness, we have a responsibility, but equally we are all very clear on the job we need to do. And our agencies are also very clear, have worked with us for a long time, and have got on board with our style of working.

So I think sometimes there’s a perception that to be that reactive you’re just doing bits and pieces here and there with no common objective or plan. We’re very grounded in our plan. But I think because of that, we are very comfortable when an opportunity presents itself or an idea shows up. We’re very comfortable making decisions quickly.

Meltdown is another example of an insight that came to us. There were two girls who put together a petition asking the big QSRs — it was picked up by the BBC — to remove plastic toys from their kids’ meals. We were very much in a challenger space in that area — there’s a very well-known kids’ meal out there and it’s not ours. But we had also been looking at how we could create a more sustainable answer to what appears in our kids’ meal. How can we move from this plastic toy to a much more sustainable solution? There were lots of developments in brilliant paper toys and activities for kids, and it was something we knew we wanted to do.

I guess that decision was fast-tracked by this petition that these girls were putting their all into. We got in contact with them and said “we hear you and we understand your reasons for this” — their perception was these toys end up in the footwell of the car and no one plays with them.

Laura: Have they seen my car?

Katie: And mine! So we said, look, there is an opportunity for us to do what we were planning to do anyway, but do it quickly — as quickly as we possibly can. And that required a lot of internal collaboration, communication, persuasion — everything that goes with “how are we going to do this, how do we do it in the right way, as quickly as possible?” And effectively overnight we removed plastic toys from our kids’ meals.

Laura: It’s fascinating because to me there are two things there — one is an attitude, which is a kind of “yeah, why not” rather than feeling defensive about it, but two is the ability to execute it. You are a big established brand but you did manage to turn this around really quickly. Can you tell us a bit about how you enabled that?

Katie: I think because we are a relatively small team, it was a lot of conversations — we’re in the office a lot. We got the right people in the room and said “there is an opportunity for us to move first here.” And I guess there is always, with any challenger brand, that drive — we have an opportunity to do something before the competition, for the right reasons, in a direction we’ve all already agreed we want to take longer term. Why can’t we do this sooner, and what do we need to put in place to make that happen?
The people involved were incredibly supportive and we’re all pushing in the same direction. Everybody could see the opportunity it presented, and I think that makes those conversations so much easier. Not every idea or opportunity that presents itself will be a winner or work as quickly as that, but the insight was there, the opportunity was there, we knew we wanted to do it, and we found a way to make it happen — working across multiple teams collaboratively to achieve it.

And we were so proud that we were able to do it. It generated more PR globally than any campaign I’m aware of. It was picked up everywhere. But it very much was a team effort.

And I guess that agility is something we very much see as a strength. Yes we are grounded in insight and we have a clear strategy, but sometimes opportunities just present themselves. When we put Whopper on the side of a bus going over Westminster Bridge — announcing what could you be referred to, there must be an election — that was an idea that just presented itself. We said “right, how can we make it work?” All of the conversations took place on WhatsApp with our agencies and we turned it around on a very low budget, very quickly. Not all campaigns work like that, but the opportunity to do those things when they present themselves — that was a BBH idea as well — you say “right, let’s give it a go.” And we did. And again that idea came up again this year for the last election, which was fun.

Adam: Katie, you’ve talked a lot about insight and you clearly value it enormously. There is something in marketing that we can all agree on — the more senior you get, the further you get away from your consumers and the people actually buying your products. What are you doing to keep yourself closer to the people at the end of the decision and make sure the stuff you’re doing is based on real interactions of real people?

Katie: I think we obviously have access to category insights and consumer insights — we run research projects, focus groups, to really understand what people think around specific things, be it new product launches or menu changes. But I think for anyone who works in this space, it’s all around you all of the time. We are surrounded by social media platforms where people are sharing insights freely — in terms of images, in TikToks, the trends are there, the content is there. And this user-generated content, while we don’t totally rely on it, certainly creates insights and shows real human behaviours for all of us. So my whole team is tapped into that.

But equally our agencies — many of the ideas that they present are born out of real insights and behaviours that are shared on social media. And I think that’s what makes this so exciting, because they change so often and move so quickly that you could run three or four research projects before you get to that specific insight. Some of these human insights are fleeting, and some of them sit in a space that you don’t think is directly related to your category, so in that piece of market research you’ve put out there, maybe you’re not asking the right questions.

I think consumers will show up in those spaces very comfortably, happy to share what they’re doing. I’ll give you an example — many many people on social media will talk about the Burger King meal they have in the airport before they go on holiday. It is a cultural part of that ritual of going on holiday — they go to the airport, they have a Burger King, and then they fly off to their destination. I never knew that. I know the brand is present in many many airports, but I never knew that was such a ritual for so many people.

These things tend to show up in those spaces. Obviously we need to understand at a deeper level — consumer behaviours and how they interact with our brand, the menu, and what we’re doing day to day. But equally it’s these nuggets of real insight that you pick up on social media and in conversations. And I think being open to that is important.

Laura: And I think, what’s great about it is that on paper it’s an occasion — you could put it on your occasion map and size it — but actually it’s tapping into so much more. It’s tapping into emotion, it’s giving you a better understanding of who your audience are and how they want to feel. So it’s giving you so much more creative fodder as well, rather than just going “this is one occasion that we’ll put on a framework and we’ll size.” It’s taking it to a lot of implications for you creatively as well.

Katie: Yeah. And I think the brands who embrace that and listen — because yes you can arrange a focus group, but the environment is very different to the environment where someone is comfortable to share in their own space. And consumers are sharing more than they’ve ever shared. I think it’s a very real way to understand what your consumers think of your product and how they interact with it. Yeah — what those real actual occasions are rather than the, you know, named research occasions.

Laura: Spontaneous consumption moment four!

Katie: Exactly!

Laura: I love those ones.

Katie: And it brings it to life because it’s actual real life — maybe in a filtered, beautiful Instagram way who knows — but it’s there, and it’s about connecting with that.

Laura: Well Katie, this has been such an illuminating conversation. Thank you so much for sharing such interesting and candid insights with us.

Adam: We really really appreciate it. Thanks for coming on Katie.

Katie: Thank you for having me.

Laura: So Adam – your first interview on the podcast, what were your key takeouts from it?

Adam: Well that was brilliant wasn’t it. A really really good interview. Katie is just a fantastic engaging speaker and we learned a lot. For me I think the most interesting thing going into this was I thought that Burger King was a really reactive business — a business that was always jumping on political commentary, sometimes tactics, very very good at tactics. And actually what was really interesting to learn was just the strategic foundations and fundamentals, the bedrock that they’ve built all of that on is there. Which allows them, when something comes up, to jump on it — because they know who they’re for, the occasions they’re trying to target, the reasons they exist, the reasons why consumers might eat their burgers over the competition. So when an opportunity arises, they’re ready to take it on.

Laura: Yeah, it’s like that lens of food-filment being a way of looking at the world but then looking really expansively.

Adam: Absolutely. And I think second to that was the agility piece to their organisation. They really are very agile and what she was saying about being able to respond incredibly quickly with their agencies to tactical opportunities that arise — I think a lot of marketers listening to this will be looking at that thinking that’s something they should try to replicate, because it really is inspiring.

Laura: Yeah. I think for me what was really inspiring was how human-centric and consumer-centric she’s obviously been throughout her career. It’s very telling that she started her career at Dunnhumby and having that lens of “what do people actually want, what moves the needle in terms of consumer behaviour” was really interesting. I think what that enables the brand to do is really find points of resonance — so even when you’re looking at occasions, you’re doing that with an emotional lens as well as a very clear understanding of the functionality of that space. For example their recent advertising, like so many of their campaigns, has got a lot of traction — I think that’s because it really taps into authenticity, but in a genuine way, because it’s based on real human insight.

Adam: Absolutely. And I think it’s clear — and her background at Dunnhumby makes this clear — that she is very interested in that human insight. It’s something that came through in the conversation loud and clear, and it comes through their comms and their marketing loud and clear. They are very very close to what consumers are looking for. And I do wonder if part of that is also about the GBK background — when you work in a retail environment, when you work in a restaurant business, you’re very close to customer feedback all the time. You have an instant feedback loop, which I think you can see running through the way that she works now.

Laura: Yeah, fantastic.

Adam: Thanks for listening. If you’d love to hear more from marketers, entrepreneurs and business leaders about how to use the art of persuasion to drive your business forward, then make sure you’re following the podcast in your favourite podcast app. And just one last ask from us — this is a new podcast and we’d love it if you could be persuaded to help us spread the word by telling somebody else about it, leaving us a review, or even better sharing an episode on social media. Search The Forge on LinkedIn.