Brief:

• Burger King is giving away its plant-based Impossible Croissan-wich to 100,000 users of its BK App as part of a nationwide rollout. The breakfast sandwich has a patty made by Impossible Foods, the food tech startup that makes alternative meat and dairy products from plants, according to an announcement.
• The free Impossible Croissan-wich offer is for customers who make a minimum purchase of $1 through the app, not including delivery orders. The campaign targets "night owls" including any "student, parent, essential night shift worker or gamer, staying up grinding through the night."
• The promotion ends on June 30 or when all 100,000 coupons have been redeemed. The introduction of the Impossible Croissan-wich follows Burger King's introduction of the Impossible Whopper sandwich last year, per its announcement.

Insight:

Burger King's promotion for the Impossible Croissan-wich is available through its mobile app, though the company aims to drive foot traffic to its restaurants by not offering the giveaway for delivery orders. The promotion may be a sign of how restaurant chains are changing their promotions as pandemic lockdowns are lifted in many municipalities. Burger King has managed to operate with takeout and delivery service while restricting on-premise service during the health crisis.

By not including delivery service in the promotion for the Impossible Croissan-wich, the campaign resembles more traditional efforts to drive mobile orders and store traffic. That marks a change from recent marketing efforts that acknowledged the coronavirus pandemic and aimed to boost delivery orders as stores were closed. In the U.S., Burger King last month let customers use its mobile app to leave "thank you" messages to employees who went into work while braving the pandemic. In April, the company adjusted its mainstay "Home of the Whopper" campaign to the "Stay Home of the Whopper" to urge people to be heroes by staying home, while praising healthcare professionals.

The pandemic is still having an effect on Burger King's mobile marketing strategy in regions like Brazil, a country that has seen a jump in coronavirus cases to the second-highest in the world after the U.S. Burger King Brazil this month gamified quarantine by increasingly rewarding customers based on time spent at home. The "Lockdown Whopper" campaign used its mobile app's geolocation feature to track when customers were sheltering in place. Customers who participated in the promotion were eligible to receive vouchers for free food.

Before the pandemic, Burger King had seen healthy growth for Impossible's products, reporting that the Impossible Whopper drove 5% of comparable sales in the U.S. during its launch. The expansion of Impossible's products to Burger King's breakfast menu may help to lift sales amid the challenges faced by the broader restaurant industry. Burger King's parent company Restaurant Brands International said the burger chain's comparable sales fell 3.7% in Q1 from a year earlier, though the current quarter likely has seen steeper declines because of the lockdowns.