Burger King is now offering whoppers delivered straight to drivers stuck in gridlock.
In most of the world’s major cities, traffic is a huge problem. Mexico City, the capital of Mexico, is said to have the worst traffic in the world. Drivers spend an average of 5 hours every day stuck in traffic. It’s gotten so bad that Burger King actually sees an opportunity where most statisticians just see billions of dollars in wasted man-hours.
With the help of We Believers advertising agency, Burger King has developed a system that will deliver burgers to people stuck in traffic for the first time ever.
The system is pretty ingenious, actually. First, the agency identifies where traffic jams are occurring and starts broadcasting the time people will be stuck in traffic to digital billboards. The billboards will also suggest downloading the Burger King app and maybe ordering a meal if you happen to be feeling a little peckish.
After downloading the app, you can then order a meal and have it sent directly to your car. The BK app teams with the latest Google Maps API to get a precise location of your vehicle so that the nearest Burger King restaurant can dispatch your meal directly to you. Then, once the meal is ready, a dude on a scooter is sent out to deliver your meal.
If you already have the BK app, you’ll get push notifications on your phone for when you’re entering a delivery area. If you use Waze, banner ads will appear notifying you of the same thing. And those billboards? They’ll also start broadcasting personal updates on the status of your order.
According to Burger King’s initial study on the pilot program in Mexico City, after instituting the Traffic Jam Whopper deliveries jumped 63% while BK app downloads jumped 44%. Burger King is now the number one most downloaded food app in Mexico as a result.
Burger King is looking to also unleash the Traffic Jam Whopper program in order cities that have bad traffic, such as Los Angeles, Shanghai, and Sao Paulo. Since the service seems to rely on lane-splitting to make deliveries even possible, don’t expect the service to appear anywhere other than California. At least, not until drone deliveries become a thing.
(Source: AdAge)