American fast-food chain Burger King is attempting a novel way to stimulate interest in their brand with the help of social networking website Facebook.

Companies have been looking for ways to benefit from the Facebook phenomenon ever since it started to gather momentum a few years ago. This has led to the creation of applications that allow the sending of ‘virtual’ branded gifts to friends and, more recently, the ability to purchase real beverages for friends on the site. Not to mention countless marketing campaigns with the help of groups and applications.

And now, Burger King has created the “Whopper Sacrifice” application, which allows American users to receive a free Whopper if they delete 10 people from their friends list.

“What,” the application queries, “would you do for a free Whopper?”

“You like your friends, but you love the Whopper,” it suggests.

Facebook allows for the anonymous ‘deletion’ of friends, but not the Whopper application. The application not only notifies the former friend that they have been deleted but also ensures a message is shown in the news feed of all friends e.g. “Daniel has sacrificed James for a free Whopper.”

Already, a group of over 200 has formed encouraging users to add people they don’t know within the group for the purpose of ‘sacrificing’ them.

It begs the question: How much is a friendship worth?… Not much more than a burger, if the current tally of sacrificed friends on the application’s homepage is any guide. For the record, it now stands at over 181,000.

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