Would you "sacrifice" 10 friends on Facebook for a Burger King Whopper?

[Valdis Krebs]

150K "friends" sacrificed for a Whopper so far: http://www.whoppersacrifice.com

Is this a good idea? Or suicidal ad by FB? [I'm sure Burger King is happy!] Lot of discussion on Twitter last night about this... most think FB is looking mighty stupid... they are mocking their customers... cheapening their brand.

Some Twitter comments...
* social network as nihilist advertising machine? is that what facebook turns into? so cynical, they make a joke of dumping your network?
* does Facebook have meaning, if it makes Ad campaigns that encourage you to dump your friends?
* totally bizarre: Burger King will give u a Whopper in exchnge 4 dumping 10 Facebook fnds. http://bit.ly/TVda who thot that was a good idea?
* Should I accept some of 80 pending friend requests on FB (from ppl I don't know) so I can unfriend them for a Whopper?

What do you think?

[Donna Miller]

I don't know what to make of this. I'm a little mystified by the whole wacky advertisement on Facebook trend. I know a lot of people spend a lot of time on Facebook and I go there from time to time, but it doesn't seem as free and easy as, say Twitter. Perhaps it's the confining interface or maybe something else, but I feel like my personal virtual real estate gets awfully crowded. I don't really work in the the business-to-consumer marketing realm, so these debates are not my lifeblood. But with all social media networks I am looking to make meaningful and enlightening connections. These silly advertising campaigns are - to me- just background noise.

[Donna Miller]

I love the Trossel quote. I can't agree more. Facebook has turned up a handful of old friends for me and, while it was mildly entertaining to find out what they were up to these days, Twitter opens up a much bigger universe of possibilities from new people whose interests better match mine.

[Mark Szczepanik]

This application is marketing genius. It's putting their product in the news. It's got word-of-mouth. It fits perfectly into BK's snarky brand voice.

I'm guessing if someone is offended by the idea, they're probably not in the target demo. Here's a good test to determine whether you're the target: Ask yourself, "Do I want to eat something described as Meatnormous?"

I think Facebook will come out fine. They're not the ones deleting friends. Blaming FB is like blaming Smith & Wesson for someone getting shot. You could delete friends without any burger compensation. Frankly, I think this gives me a friendly out for a few "friends." I don't have to explain that (hypothetically) I don't care what your dog was dressed as for Halloween and your baby is funny looking.

And I would say FB made a mistake if BK was encouraging people to delete their accounts vs. an easily re-established connection. But BK really doesn't profit from you deleting friends. I don't think they have a stake in MySpace or LinkedIn. It's all in good fun and great marketing.

You can add back the friends you sacrifice, I did.

[Dan Ketterick]

It's genius.

Watching people at work "burn" their friends (the application "torches" your friends profile photo was extremely entertaining, both for coworkers of mine who were hooting and hollering with glee as they installed the app, and for any of us nearby, who were sucked into asking: "What's going on? Wait, he's doing this to get Burger King? Sweet, I'm going to do that, too."

And several of those who got "burned" by Burger King took the time to talk (insult, get ticked off at) the person who flamed them.

If social media is about talking with people -- this campaign certainly got people talking.

Of course FB has a cheap brand -- there's no cost save your time.

If your friends can take a joke, it works for Burger King, Facebook and people who eat bland meat.