The ‘Stevenage Challenge’ with Burger King

In order to increase their exposure by slightly moving out of their comfort zones to explore more opportunities in the market, brands need to be creative and implement an interdisciplinary approach. It may seem strange that one of the world's most popular fast-food chains would want to increase its visibility in a field that is dominated by millennials, a generation highly involved in gaming. For this reason, in terms of innovative sponsorship activations, Burger King's broad-visioned approach with EFL League Two club Stevenage FC is clearly one of the most exciting.

Burger King brought global fame to Stevenage FC in the 2019-20 season, incentivizing Fifa 20 players to make the little-known English club into the ‘biggest team online’.

Burger King wanted to use its shirt sponsorship deal with English Stevenage as a back-door route into global gaming/social brand exposure and millennial engagement.

The two-season deal saw the iconic Burger King logo appear on the Stevenage kit, but the main objective in its 2019-20 activation, which launched in October, was to transform the fourth-tier club into everyone’s favorite virtual team – using the top football game Fifa 20 – and thus drive brand exposure and engagement.

Working with agency DAVID, the route to gaming fame was the ‘Stevenage Challenge’: an initiative that invited gamers to compete in a series of Fifa 20 in-game challenges for which participation was incentivized by the chance to win free food.

Gamers could play as Stevenage FC in FIFA and buy big-name, high-profile virtual players for the virtual team (meaning the likes of Messi, Neymar, and Pogba appeared wearing the kit carrying the BK logo) and then complete a series of in-game challenges.

Players who shared footage of them taking on the challenges (such as scoring a goal from a free kick, a chip shot goal, or putting one in the back of the net from past the halfway line) via Twitter using the #StevenageChallenge hashtag won free menu items, Whopper meals and even a year’s supply of Whoppers.

The global campaign was launched across the USA, China, Mexico, Brazil, the UK, France, Germany, Russia, Sweden, and Spain. It was promoted across Burger King and the club’s social channels and spearheaded by a hero spot rolled out on 17 October 2019.

The campaign led to 25,000 Stevenage goals being shared online and saw the club become the most used team in Fifa’s ‘Career Mode’, plus the club’s replica shirts sold out for the first time in the club’s history.

Burger King gained huge exposure across FIFA’s gaming community, which in 2018 EA reported as consisting of 20 million players from 60 countries. All without the brand having to spend the multiple millions that top-tier English teams demand for their shirt front rights.

The campaign won multiple marketing awards including three pencils at D&AD and One Club gold.