Chapter 4:
Hack the system
In a fair game, the best player wins. But nobody plays fair.
McDonald’s has five times the ad budget and ten times the revenue of Burger King.1 To fight back, Burger King has delivered some of the most subversive marketing in its industry. The company ran a nine-day promotion called the Whopper Detour to launch its new mobile app. Users could buy a Whopper for $0.01—but only if they ordered it from a McDonald’s parking lot, left, and picked it up at a nearby Burger King.2 It even published ads featuring moldy Whoppers to promote an urban legend about McDonald’s artificial preservatives.3
Outgunned financially, Burger King can’t afford to play fair. There’s a group obsessed with finding the one weakness that gives ...
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