How Impossible Foods Leverages Their Partnership with Burger King

Key Takeaways

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The Impossible Whopper from Burger King has had a significant influence on Impossible Foods' awareness. These are the ways that Impossible Foods have leveraged this partnership with Burger King: 

• Trademark: Impossible Foods has trademarked "Impossible" meaning each time Burger King features this non-meat Whopper the Impossible brand is featured and stands out with the trademark symbol.  
  

• Social Ads: Impossible Foods has significantly grown its following on Twitter by piggybacking off Burger King’s established audience on the platform. Impossible Foods ran a paid Twitter campaign promoting the Impossible Whopper with ads utilizing Burger King's look and feel. 
  

• Articles & Press: The Impossible Whopper achieved a significant buzz in the press and was featured in over 5K articles. Part of this success can be attributed to Impossible Foods' media kit on its website. 
  

• Partnerships: Impossible Foods, Burger King and T-Mobile partnered for a cross-promotion. Impossible Foods utilized social ads to promote the offer and increase sales. The campaign resulted in an average increase of DAU by 88% for the T-Mobile Tuesdays app and 70% for the Burger King app. 

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Impossible Foods Inc. offers plant-based meat alternatives that taste and provide similar nutritional benefits as meat without the adverse health and environmental impacts associated with livestock products.

In 2019, Burger King and Impossible Foods teamed up to create the Impossible Whopper. 

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In April 2019, Burger King began testing the Impossible Whopper at select locations in the US and later launched them nationwide in August 2019. In June 2020, Burger King launched the Impossible Croissan’wich. The Impossible Whopper launched in Canada in April 2021.

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Burger King's launch of the Impossible Whopper in August 2019 caused a spike in search interest for both "Impossible Whopper" and "Impossible Burger" by +1406% and +145%, respectively. 

As a result of their partnership, Impossible Foods significantly boosted its brand recognition worldwide.

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These are the four main ways Impossible Foods has been leveraging their partnership with Burger King:

1. Trademark. Impossible Foods’ “Impossible” trademark helps increase brand awareness and reputation.

2. Social Ads. Impossible Foods piggybacks off Burger King’s established following on Twitter with paid Twitter ads that appear like a Burger King tweet.

3. Articles & Press. The Impossible Whopper has effectively made a buzz in the press. The brand provides a detailed media kit on its site with branded images and relevant details for journalists to utilize.

4. Partnerships. Impossible Foods partnered with T-Mobile and Burger King to increase awareness and drive sales. 

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"Impossible" has been trademarked by Impossible Foods Inc. This means every time Burger King promotes this non-meat burger, the Impossible brand is featured and stands out with the trademark symbol.

Trademark

This consistent brand mention and trademark helps increase brand awareness and builds brand reputation amongst Burger King's vast audience.

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Burger King is an active player in the "fast-food Twitter battlefield". Their sarcastic and humorous presence on Twitter has gained them a significant following. When the Impossible Whopper first launched, Burger King had 36x more Twitter followers than Impossible Foods. 

Impossible Foods’ top engaged hashtag on Twitter is #ImpossibleWhopper which generated 887 engagements. 

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Since launching their partnership in 2019, Impossible Foods has piggybacked off Burger King’s significant Twitter following to help grow their audience and increase brand awareness. Impossible Foods’ Twitter following increase by +80% from June 2019 to May 2021. 

                                          Twitter Follower Growth Over Time

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In December 2020, Impossible Foods promoted the Impossible Whopper with a Twitter video ad campaign. The videos utilized Burger King’s branding and the campaign creative focused on the holidays and cooking fatigue. The campaign generated over +13.8M impressions at a CPM of only $6.30. 

Social Ads

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The ad creative mimicked the look and feel of other Burger King tweets. The creative used Burger King's brand colours, fonts, logo, voice/tone. They utilized a strong CTA to encourage viewers to try the burger at Burger King and linked the ad to the Burger King website.

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From July 2019 to June 2021, the "Impossible Whopper" has had a buzz in the press. During this period, "Impossible Whopper" has been featured in over 5K articles including many well known news sources. These articles from have generated over 1.6M engagements.

Articles & Press

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Some of the Impossible Whopper's success in the press can be attributed to the media kit that Impossible Foods offers on its website. This media kit includes branded images of the Impossible Whopper Burger and all necessary details needed for the press.

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In November 2020, Impossible Foods, Burger King and T-Mobile partnered for a cross-promotion. The partnership featured a free Impossible Whopper or Whopper for T-Mobile customers with the T-Mobile Tuesdays app and a $1 purchase on the Burger King app. This promotion helped generate +1.1M and +434K monthly app downloads for Burger King and T-Mobile, respectively.

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Impossible Foods ran a paid social ad campaign to increase awareness about this promotion. The campaign ran on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and resulted in over 7.7M impressions at an average CPM of $12.66.

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During this promotion, the T-Mobile Tuesdays and the Burger King app daily active users on Google increased by an average of +86% and +72% respectively.