Hrithik Roshan gets pranked into an ad campaign for Burger King

Burger King India, has rolled out a campaign titled ‘#EkDumPachaas’ (fully fifty) featuring actor Hrithik Roshan to highlight its stunner menu. 

Conceptualised by Leo Burnett Orchard, the films showcase how Burger King India pranked Roshan, catching him off guard and used his reactions to promote its new menu.

The first film, ‘fantastic prank’, features Roshan interrogating a Burger King employee along with his bodyguards to figure out how he became a meme ad on their website. The film shows how the employee disguises himself as a paparazzi and captures the moment Roshan says ‘fantastic’. The employee then uses that video clip to promote the menu. 

The second film, ‘you are the man sir - prank’, showcases a continuation of the first film. Roshan sees that he is not only a meme that says ‘fantastic’ repeatedly but also an ambient billboard ad. The employee shares that when he was disguised as a paparazzi, he said, ‘you are the man sir’ which prompted Roshan to point at the camera and gave the Burger King team time to place a background of their stunner menu behind him. 

The third film, ‘Stunner menu stuns Hrithik’, features Roshan’s lawyers and head of security arguing with the burger king employee on how they didn’t take his consent for the promotion of the creatives. To everyone's surprise, Roshan picks up a burger from the Stunner Menu and says fantastic after taking a bite. 

Kapil Grover, chief marketing officer, Burger King India, said, “At Burger King India, we are always discovering new ways to engage with our Gen Z and millennial guests. A never-before, celebrity hack style content, based on the insight of the ‘great Indian jugaad’ became the tenet of our #EkDumPachaas campaign. The campaign not only fits our real and authentic filter of communication but also beautifully personifies our hackvertising mindset, all keeping our TG in sight. #EkDumPachaas is a new age campaign on new age media for our guests who are constantly pushing the boundaries of content.”

Prashant Sukhwani, head of brand and communication, Burger King India, said, “Burger King’s core lies in being real and authentic. Hence, to bring a celebrity into the Burger King brand world required extreme caution and consideration. We are happy to collaborate with Hrithik Roshan, the personality, who has brought in his real reactions and emotions in our #EkDumPachaas campaign. We hope this style of marketing content is enjoyed by our guests leading to more cutting-edge work from us.”

Vikram Pandey, national creative director and Pravin Sutar, head of creative, Leo Burnett Orchard, said, “Typically celebs are used in a campaign holding the product in their hand and rattling off the reasons to believe. But this was Burger King, and we had to do things differently. Hacking is part of the brand DNA and thus, came the idea of ‘what if we hack Hrithik Roshan into featuring in our ads!’ The value proposition was built right into the idea. And unlike regular campaigns, we choose to break it via paparazzi posting the content to make it feel genuine.”