Whopper Freakout was an advertising campaign created by the fast food company, Burger King. At a Burger King restaurant in Las Vegas, Nevada, customers who ordered the company's Whopper hamburger or cheeseburger were informed that the product had been discontinued. Real customers' reactions to this news were included in the radio and television advertisements.
During the first day of testing, Burger King employees' response to inquiring or complaining customers was that the company did not tell them why the Whopper, Burger King's best selling menu item, was being discontinued. That the Whopper was too popular was another response. An employee posing as a news reporter elicited customer reactions.
During the second day at the store, the sale of Whoppers was reinstituted. However, instead of seeing the familiar Whopper in their bags, customers saw the top-selling burgers of their two leading competitors: the McDonald's Big Mac or "Classic" burger. Employees denied selling customers their competitors' food and refused to refund or exchange them for genuine Burger King food. When they asked to speak to the person in charge, "The Burger King", Burger King's official mascot and star of their television commercials, greeted customers and presented them with a genuine Whopper.
Later in the day, the store started selling real Whoppers again.
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