In one of the strangest marketing promotions I've ever heard of, Burger King Holdings (NYSE: BKC) was offering a free Whopper to anyone who de-friended ten people.But the promotion ran afoul of Facebook rules. According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), "Each time someone de-friended someone else through a special application, Burger King published an update on both people's Facebook pages. That helped spread the word -- but ran afoul of the site's protocol."
The campaign had slogans like "Friendship is strong, but the Whopper is stronger," and inspired thousands of members to dump friends in exchange for free food.
It seems incredibly socially awkward: Wouldn't it create some tension when you see that people are deleting you as a friend? People delete friends on Facebook all the time, but there's no announcement on the site and the only way you'd find out is if you went to look at the person's profile and noticed that they weren't your friend anymore.
But it's a shame that Facebook shut down the promotion: If users want to lose friends over Whoppers, why should Facebook care?
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