And that’s even before McDonald’s gets in their counter-marketing campaign. It’d be really easy to come up with something that makes them look better.
“New promotion! Get a Big Mac for just <whatever sale price they want>! Just go to any McDonald’s location, and then… order it from that location. No creepy app needed!”
Plus, Burger King had already been getting some flak for their King ads coming across as stalker-y. And their response was to introduce an app that actually stalks people?
BK should have told the franchises to honor the promotion.
The customer installs the App and makes an effort to use it at a McDonald’s. It’s ridiculous to cause bad feelings over a $5 burger. Verify the App is installed and ask them if they want fries with that one cent burger.
BK seems to have planned this poorly.
This should be a fun promotion that gets customers to install the App. Instead it sounds like a PR mess.
Pretty sure they can’t force the franchisees to do that.
Burger King could pay the franchisees’ costs.
I found this which explains why I couldn’t use this promo. You would think their app would at least tell you which locations participate and which don’t.
It would seem insane to me that Burger King would come up with this promotion and expect the franchisees to be the ones paying for it by offering well-below-cost food. No matter what the franchisee decides, they lose money - either from lost goodwill, or from selling at a loss. It’s not too hard to imagine that a lot of them would go with the former, which makes the ad campaign look terrible for the national brand. I definitely would have expected corporate BK to offer subsidies when rolling out this promotion.
The Burger King Facebook page is hilarious for the comments. Probably 80% of the comments are people complaining that it didn’t work and most of them claiming that they just ate at McDonalds.
IMHO, the only thing edible at BK is their Whopper (or the junior version) with light mayo. Everything else there is garbage, especially anything there that is deep-fried. If I want fries, I go to McD’s.
So because they had a promo on the one thing I’ll eat there, I downloaded the app. I had no problem whatsoever. I ordered in the McDonald’s parking lot located a quarter mile from a BK. After ordering, it told me I had an hour to get my Whopper. I thought about getting fries from McD’s since I was already there…but decided against it. 
The app told me to get into the BK drive-thru and tap the “I’m Here” button, which gave me an order number. I gave the order number to the cashier, and was on my way in under a minute, without having to pull out my wallet. Pretty slick, actually.
So the whole promotion worked flawlessly for me. If the app gets annoying, I’ll just delete it.
ETA: There was one annoying thing…they charged 60 cents for cheese. So the Whopper actually cost me $0.61.
Good deal. Wish it would come to Japan. Avocado Whopper is around 600 Yen.
I just remembered a different really bad BK promotion. They changed the way they made their fries several years ago and gave away a small fries for free for anyone who showed up. The ad campaign could be summed up as “our fries don’t suck anymore. They are almost as good as McDonalds now.”
Obviously they were hoping that people would get a regular meal on top of the free fries and maybe even love something there enough to eat there more regularly. I was driving past one with my then girlfriend and we just got our fries and left. They were mediocre.
“Mediocre” is being kind…the change consisted of BK coating their fries in some kind of starchy material, like spray starch for laundry. Presumably it is food grade. 
I used to like their onion rings years ago when I was a kid. Now I think they are gross. They’re basically chopped-up onion glop that is breaded and deep-fried in old oil. Their “onion ring dipping sauce” sucks, too.
For a while, I would just get their side salad instead of fries or onion rings. It was an allowable alternative for their meals. However, it got tiring having to convince their employees every time that a side salad could be substituted for fries (even though it was right on the menu). Often I got their crappy fries *and * a side salad, and charged extra. Plus the salad wasn’t that great anyway.
The Whopper has always been san cheese with the “Whopper with Cheese” as a premium upgrade. Usually when people say “The Whopper” is edible I’m assuming they mean the regular version. This is one of the reasons I never do any of the 2 for whatever or BOGO Whopper deals, I only like it with cheese. I remember when they actually had it on the menu with up to a Triple with cheese, but now everything is extra unless you get the bacon with cheese one.
I’m not convinced that it can be described as containing onions. It tastes the closest to cardboard as I want to get without actually chewing on a cereal box. I do specify cereal box, as I think it possible that chewing on a pizza box in certain places where the grease has soaked in might taste better than BK onion-esque rings.
I wouldn’t go to either place. The only crappy burger I ever get (and that’s maybe once a year) is the Carl’s Junior Western Bacon Cheeseburger. It’s gross, but a tasty gross. I won’t eat a McDonald’s burger even if it’s free. Horrible. They don’t even taste like beef. BK burgers are better as I remember, but not worth going out of my way for. All these burgers have going for them is price. I’m spoiled for choice with so many really good burger places (that don’t cost all that much more than the big chains) near me that I can’t imagine a promotion that would get me to their restaurant.
The word that comes to mind when I think of a BK Whopper is “wet”. For some reason, it seemed more watery than the Big Mac. (I always liked the chili at Wendys, though and their baked potatoes were also pretty good.)
That was the 20 year ago change. God, those sucked. Sometime between 2011 and 2016 (I wasn’t here) they got rid of that starchy stuff. Now they’re merely mediocre.
(On a side note, Wendy’s changed their awesome fries to something horrible during the same time period, and now have a fake Frosty without chocolate in it.)
Yeah, my recollection is that they really piled on the mayo and the lettuce-tomato-mayo layer would just slide around on you. It’s been many many years since I’ve had a Whopper. McDonald’s is my mega-fast-food chain love.
Their app is a joke in my opinion. It shows you at a different place from your current location and these promotions are good for nothing because they don’t work.
For reasons that will go unexplained I had a Whopper and onion rings for dinner Saturday night. Words cannot adequately describe the flatulence and gut-rumblings this meal caused me all day Sunday. Quite possibly the worst fast-food meal I’ve ever eaten that didn’t result in outright food poisoning.