Burger King’s ‘No Bully’ Campaign Calls Out Customers For Not Stepping Up To Help

How does a Whopper Jr. help stop bullying? Sound like a crazy question? Burger King’s latest commercial is using one of its most popular sandwiches to shine a light on the bullying epidemic.

NoBully.org and Burger King teamed up with the David Miami Ad Agency to develop the campaign. They took a simple idea—a high school junior being bullied at a Burger King restaurant—and used hidden cameras to see how other customers would react. The students were all actors, so no one was in any real danger. At the same time, these other customers also picked up their food order and discovered some major problems with it. Would they react that that?

Watch the full commercial to see the shocking responses:

https://youtu.be/mnKPEsbTo9s

The social experiment highlighted a common problem when it comes to fighting bullying: people not standing up for others. Nearly all of the customers who got their “bullied” Whopper Jr. took action and complained to management. But far fewer people—only 12 percent—made a move to step in to help the young man.

“We know that bullying takes on many forms, physical, verbal, relational and online. But the first step to putting an end to bullying is to take a stand against it,” said No Bully’s CEO and founder, Nicholas Carlisle to Adweek. “Our partnership with Burger King is an example of how brands can bring positive awareness to important issues. You have to start somewhere, and they chose to start within.”

Burger King officials told “Today” that they want this ad to start conversations and look forward to more opportunities to spread the word about anti-bullying efforts.

“The campaign is a first step to try to make a difference. That’s why BK partnered with No Bully to create awareness and we are looking into how to extend the relationship,” said Burger King’s head of global brand management Fernando Machado in email to “Today.”

The new Burger King ad drew a lot of social media response, many of them positive regarding the fast food company’s efforts:

Others echoed these sentiments and shared how they’ve been bullied in the past:

Way to go, Burger King for using your advertising dollars not only to promote a product, but also how we can treat one another better!