Fernando Machado was the king of marketing in the fast-food world. As he ends his reign at Burger King, I want to re-highlight one of my favorite campaigns in marketing.

It’s been a while since I wrote a blog post. I guess I wasn’t inspired by any ads, a writer’s block of sorts. But, with Machado leaving his role as Global CMO of Burger King, I wanted to look back at the Whopper Detour. I remember seeing it for the first time and remarking on its cleverness.

This came out in late 2018 into 2019, continuing the rivalry between the two fast-food behemoths. (Should we say the beef between them? Or, is that too easy?) FCB worked with them to send customers to be within 600 feet/180 meters of a McDonald’s. Once there, they could order a 1 cent Whopper on the BK app. The app would then direct them to the nearest BK to pick up their 1 cent Whopper.

It generated quite a commotion which led to BK’s largest footfall in 4.5 years, a spot at the top of the App Store, and a 37:1 ROI. It was arguably the apex of Machado’s rule. He led BK through some amazing campaigns – and is leaving on the heels of the International Women’s Day disaster. Sure, it’s not a great way to end his time at BK, yet his number of wildly successful campaigns live on to be remembered. I’m excited to see the torch being passed to Paloma Azulay, the former global CMO for Popeyes. I hope to see more clever and smart campaigns in the future.