Burger King and Crispin Porter + Bogusky were awarded the Grand Effie Award for the “Whopper Freakout” campaign last night at the 41st annual Effie Gala at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York. Since 1968, winning an Effie award has become a global symbol of achievement, as the Effies honor marketing communications ideas that work.
“Burger King won the Grand Effie convincingly due to their boldness and creativity across multiple media platforms, delivering real cultural relevance and above all, outstanding business results,” says Carl Johnson, chairman of the board of directors of Effie Worldwide and Co-Founder of Anomaly.
To coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Whopper, Burger King conducted a social experiment removing the iconic Whopper from the menu. Phase one of the experiment explored deprivation to see what would happen if America’s most beloved burger was removed from the menu forever without any announcement. Phase two took the social experiment to another level when, in lieu of the Whopper, customers were given competitors’ burgers. Burger King launched a series of TV spots to drive traffic to ‘Whopperfreakout.com’ where people could view a full-length 8-minute documentary on the experiment. This film was linkable and uploadable to blogs and social networking sites, serving as a catalyst for interaction. As a result of the campaign, Whopper quarterly sales increased by double-digits.
Grand Effie finalists included Anomaly and Converse for “Domaination”, DDB Seattle and McDonald’s for “Unsnobby Coffee”, Energy BBDO and Canadian Club for “Damn Right”, MindShare and Suave and Sprint for “In The Motherhood”, and TBWA\Chiat\Day and Pedigree for Pedigree “Echo”.
Out of the 24 Gold Effies awarded last night, Independent Agencies brought home seven gold trophies, while Omnicom was the holding company with the most Gold Effie winning campaigns (six). MDC won three Gold Effies and the remaining Gold Effies were spread out among the industry’s holding companies.
DDB won 11 Effies, the most of any agency in the competition including three Gold, six Silver and two Bronze trophies.
Gold Effie agency winners by region include DDB, Energy BBDO and (Chicago), Ignited and TBWA\Chiat\Day (Los Angeles), Crispin Porter + Bogusky (Miami), Colle + McVoy, Preston Kelly and Olson (Minneapolis), EURO RSCG, Grey, Publicis and Mindshare (New York), Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners, Goodby Silverstein+ Partners and McCann Worldgroup (San Francisco) and DDB and WONGDOODY (Seattle). More details on the campaigns and brands for each winner can be found on www.effie.org.
Brands with at least two Effie wins each include Allstate, Canadian Club, Clorox Green Works, Converse, McDonald’s, New York Lottery, Nintendo, Old Spice, Sun Chips, and US Army.
