Dive Brief:

• Burger King in Romania partnered with Vola.ro, the country's top airline ticket e-commerce site, to launch a WhopperNoShow.com website that lets people find cheap plane tickets with the goal of trading their boarding passes for a Whopper, per a press release provided to Marketing Dive.  
• The promotion stemmed from the fact that Romania's only Burger King is located past the security line at the Bucharest International Airport. With the campaign, consumers purchase low-cost, one-way tickets online, go through the security check and exchange their boarding passes for a Whopper. Sandwiches are only served when customers' planes take off without them. 
• Burger King released a YouTube video showing how the process works and real fans arriving at the airport, going through security and heading straight to the food court to redeem their burger while missing their flights. 

Dive Insight:

Burger King in Romania is testing the boundaries of how far people will go — and how much they'll pay — to get a Whopper, including by weathering the dreariness of airport security and shelling out for a one-way plane ticket. By taking a lot of the legwork out of having to find and purchase cheap tickets by partnering with Vola.ro, the brand could drive additional interest in an already attention-grabbing campaign. 

These kinds of stunts have been successful for Burger King, generating social media buzz and awareness and helping to drive foot traffic. The fast-food chain recently increased sales in Peru by 40% and earned a lot of media coverage with a King Popcorn product that hid a Whopper and fries under a serving of popcorn. The menu item intended to skirt a new law in Peru that allows moviegoers to bring their own snacks into cinemas, as long as the snacks are in-line with what the theater already sells. 

Burger King has used similar creative strategies in the U.S. to develop a more distinct personality and riff on current events and trends. It ran a campaign in January illustrating the possible negative effects of the pending repeal of net neutrality, for example. The company also garnered a top creative award at Cannes Lion and generated an estimated $135 million in earned media with a Whopper TV campaign last year that hijacked Google Home devices using the "Okay, Google" voice command.