Brief:

• Burger King will deliver free food to "Kings of Soccer" gamers who dress virtual soccer players in Stevenage Football Club jerseys and post videos of their ball-handling skills to Twitter. The burger chain aims to make Stevenage, a U.K. soccer team that Burger King began sponsoring this year, the most famous club in the world, per an announcement.
• Burger King created a microsite, stevenagechallenge.com, that lists a series of challenges "Kings of Soccer" players need to capture on video and post to the @BurgerKing Twitter account with the hashtag #stevenagechallenge to win food. For example, players who score a goal while wearing the Stevenage jersey receive an Uber Eats delivery code for free large fries with their next Burger King order from participating locations.
• The burger chain is giving away 500 orders of food for each of the 10 challenges, which kicked off on Oct. 17 and runs through Oct. 23.

Insight:

With a contest that urges mobile gamers to share user-generated content on social media, Burger King is leveraging its sponsorship of a little-known U.K. soccer team into a worldwide campaign targeting young adults who are especially tuned into social media challenges and delivery platforms. As "Kings of Soccer" players post their videos to Twitter, they help to publicize the campaign among a broader network of social media users, upping the likelihood of the campaign reaching viral levels.

Burger King's Stevenage challenge again demonstrates how social media has become central to the chain's marketing efforts, although this campaign is mostly targeted at mobile gamers. More than 2.5 billion people worldwide play video games, and mobile gaming generates $68.5 billion in revenue, making it the biggest segment of the $152.1 billion gaming market, per researcher Newzoo. Burger King's campaign may help to boost downloads of "Kings of Soccer," an app created by 5th Planet Games than generated fewer than 5,000 downloads in September, per app analytics firm Sensor Tower.

Burger King is the latest fast food chain to embrace mobile gaming. Rival Wendy's this week became of the first sponsor of Giphy's new video game platform that lets people share customized micro-games in their social media posts and mobile messages. Wendy's also recently created a branded avatar for the hit multiplayer game "Fortnite," which is popular among U.S. teens.

Burger King's Stevenage challenge comes as the company pushes delivery from Uber Eats. This week, the burger chain began a national campaign featuring a promotional video compiled from customers' doorbell camera footage.

Among campaigns in individual countries, Burger King's mobile marketing efforts have included a conquesting stunt in Germany that tied to the release of the horror movie "It Chapter Two." In March, the brand offered mobile users in Brazil a free Whopper for virtually setting fire to competitors' billboards. In May, the brand pushed downloads of its mobile app in the U.S. by creating a contest for people saddled by student loan debt.