Burger King’s secret sauce: How agile insights drive LTO success

Nelson Choi, the Senior Insights Analyst at Burger King, says his team first turned to Ideally in August last year to test different burger LTO concepts. “Initially, we only wanted to test some burger LTO concepts… And the insights that we got from ideally were really interesting,” Choi recalls. “It gives us an idea of whether we should continue down that path of a new product development and how we should tinker with it while understanding what people care about the most if they see this concept.”

Fast insights are essential when the new product development (NPD) cycle can be twelve months or longer. With LTOs, timing is everything. Burger King used Ideally to benchmark a tried-and-true burger promotion, and the results were surprising. “One of the concept tests we did was benchmark one of our existing promotions… I think that one was quite interesting because it was tested middle of the pack when it came to offering other flavours and everything…” The findings prompted the team to pivot and create “an LTO version of an LTO,” ultimately discovering that “those concepts that were tested did slightly better in some aspects than the original product itself.”

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Burger King hasn’t limited Ideally’s use to burger testing alone. The platform came in handy when naming a new bundle, now known in stores as the “King Sampler”, and has proved just as effective for gauging loyalty programme messaging. “We wanted to ensure that the message that we deliver, people understood it and it was relatable,” explains Choi. By simply sharing access to Ideally’s results, teams across the organisation can see data instantly and run with it. No lengthy debriefs required.

As consumer research grows more affordable and more accessible, Burger King sees a chance to push its insights deeper. They’re also excited to compare the opinions of loyal BK customers with those of a broader, nationally representative audience through an integrated, custom panel. For him, the biggest win is how the platform encourages creative thinking: