During the Halloween season, people all around the U.S. seek out the scariest places to get their thrills and chills. From haunted houses and corn mazes to abandoned buildings, visiting scary destinations is top of mind amongst our Gen-z and Millennial customers. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 in 2020, many of the expected Halloween attractions weren’t operational. This meant more people—especially our target audience—were still looking to get their “spooky szn” vibes, but in a safe and fun way that would still reward them with some kind of holiday treat.

So we decided to give these Halloween fanatics something scary, fun and safe to do by daring them to visit the “Scariest Places” on earth—A.K.A. our competitors’ abandoned restaurants where flame-grilling never occurred.  What makes these places so scary is that when they were open, they viciously fried burgers on a flat-top fryer instead of delivering the flame-grilled taste people love. For those who dared to get within 300 ft. of the locations, they would receive a treat in the form of a free flame-grilled Whopper sandwich in the BK App—no tricks.

We launched the “Scary Places” print campaign in local newspapers of towns where each competitor’s abandoned restaurant was located. At the same time, we geo-targeted BK App users in the areas surrounding each location with push notifications that would show them the location and the challenge. Lastly, we leveraged all our social channels for both organic and geo-targeted posts to drive people to each location.