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How Fernando Machado Has Steered Burger King and Popeyes Through the Covid Crisis
RBI's global CMO on bringing smiles, and driving sales, during the pandemic
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Burger King and Popeyes haven’t missed a beat during the coronavirus pandemic, with both continuing to produce their unique brand of entertaining advertising, just with a Covid spin. On this week’s episode of On Brand, we catch up with Fernando Machado, who oversees both brands as global CMO of Restaurant Brands International. He explains his approach during Covid and how WFH is going, and we also chat about other work like “Moldy Whopper” and “Cows Menu” and the value of creativity as a business advantage.
Timestamps:
• 1:20 – How WFH is going for Fernando and his team.
• 3:00 – Does remote working help or hurt creativity?
• 4:20 – How Fernando has balanced giving people a smile while still driving business for his brands during Covid.
• 9:15 – Inside the recent Popeyes campaign targeting pizza lovers.
• 12:02 – A look at the Burger King 2020 Christmas campaign, which came a few months early, and the cow-farts campaign.
• 23:58 – Revisiting “Moldy Whopper.”
• 28:28 – Is all PR good PR?
• 31:50 – Other advertising Fernando has admired during Covid.
• 34:00 – What he learned from his time at Unilever that he still uses today.
• 38:46 – What the next 6-12 months look like for Fernando and his brands.
New episodes of On Brand roll out every Thursday at 4 p.m. ET. Each week, Clio president Nicole Purcell and I chat with top brand marketers—most of whom are still working from home—about the value and effectiveness of creativity, what they want from their agency and solution partners, how they’re shepherding their brands through Covid and beyond, and more.
If you’re a brand marketer who’d like to take part in the series, please get in touch.
