Burger King is taking cues from Boris Karloff-era horror movies to bring its Franken Whopper to life, and it hopes consumer interest on social for the online exclusive will translate into more app adoption.

The creative has the look and feel of 1930s Universal Pictures monster movies like Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, complete with a title cards and bubbly beakers, showing how it’s new limited-time offer was zapped to life in a furtive lab.

“This started as a fun social post last year of a make-believe Halloween-themed product, but we’ve now turned into an actual LTO,” says Matthew Wright, GM for Burger King Canada, adding that feedback the brand received for the Instagram post uncovered how much excitement there was for an actual Franken Whopper. “We even went as far as sifting through the comment section of last year’s post when deciding on the final build.”

Digital, Wright notes, has been a major focus for the QSR in 2021. And outside of a digital-first advertising strategy, the Franken Whopper is only available through in-app ordering, which Wright says is a mechanism Burger King is using to drive adoption and make a preferred ordering channel.

Wright says Halloween is all about being bold and standing out from the crowd and that the same can be said about the Burger King brand, making it a perfect opportunity for it to engage with unique activations.

Modernization of its locations is also a key part of Burger King’s path forward. In this week’s Q3 conference call, RBI CEO Jose Cil announced that over 50% of its BK drive-thrus are equipped with digital menu boards, and that it expects to reach a near 100% milestone by mid-2022.

Earlier this year, Burger King refreshed its brand, updating its logos, colours, typefaces and packaging with a retro look. 

According to Wright, the globally-led rebrand is something the QSR is proud of, but which has also really resonated with guests and that it’s excited to leverage the new visual identity more in future campaigns.

OneMethod, which won the QSR’s business in spring of 2019, is responsible for the creative.