We Believers’ “Cows Menu” campaign for Burger King took nearly two-and-a-half years to finalize and worked off one single fact: Methane released from cows' burps and farts every year has the same effect of approximately 2 billion tons of CO2 and represents 4% of total global emissions.
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Two months after discussing the problem with client Burger King in 2017, We Believers set out to make a menu for cows to reduce methane.
The agency funded a study with a top scientist on the subject and began the collaboration, testing the addition of different herbs to cows’ diets, including chamomile and lemongrass, and found that adding 100 grams of lemongrass leaves to a cattle’s daily feed in the last four months of its life reduced its daily methane emissions by up to 33%.
That led to Burger King's first-ever Reduced Methane Emissions Beef Whoppers, which were sold in BK restaurants in Austin, L.A., Miami, New York and Portland. It all culminated last year when the new burgers were promoted in a whimsical, music-video-style film directed by Oscar-winning director Michel Gondry. Though the planet-friendly beef Whoppers were available for only a limited time, Burger King made its research open-source so that other chains could access and implement it.
Along with publishing the findings in a leading peer-reviewed scientific journal, Burger King shared everything online, including a how-to-video to make worldwide adoption possible.
As a result, the campaign improved public perception of brand sustainability by 203%—141% higher than industry benchmarks on Twitter—and garnered 12.5 billion impressions.
