Hard Rock Café came to us to launch their new menu on social. They knew their brand needed a boost in social relevance and tasked our creative to reinforce their rock ‘n’ roll brand values.
We started by looking back to the early 70s at Hard Rock’s heritage as a rebellious brand that delivered the spirit of rock with every visit. We combined gritty rock ‘n’ roll style photography with a new brand tagline, “Legends Only.”
Knowing the full-service restaurant category has a constant stream of menu launches, we knew we needed to do much more than just another social ad campaign to get Hard Rock’s new menu the attention it deserved. After a tasting session, we quickly realized their new steak burger, topped with a 24K gold leaf, would be the perfect item to lead the activation. We helped name it the 24-Karat Gold Leaf Steak Burger™ and trademarked it to start things off. Then we focused on creative ways to tie this new gold burger into the restaurant’s rock ‘n’ roll heritage. Rock ‘n’ roll has always meant being bold and taking risks. We pushed ourselves creatively to do something that has never been done before and showcase it on social versus sticking to conventional creative social guardrails. We needed to do something that ROCKED, literally.
So, we invented the world’s first burger electric guitar (patent pending) that could actually play music through the burger’s ingredients. Partnering with legendary guitar builder James Trussart, the delicious instrument had a single-board micro-controller wired into the digital guitar’s circuitry, which enabled musical notes to be played through the ingredients via capacitive touch. As the musician touches a bun or tomato or steak patty, a unique musical note is played.
Insert burger, plug cords into burger, plug guitar into amp and then rage.
We didn’t stop there: We created an unedited face-melting burger solo, album art for a vinyl release, an Alexa skill, social videos and playable sheet music for fans. And in true rock ‘n’ roll fashion, we sent two of the actual burger-playing electric guitars on a world tour across Hard Rock Café locations and press events. All content ran social-first, far eclipsing expectations for what typical social post content was limited to. Rock ‘n’ roll.
The Golden Solo garnered international coverage and outpaced Hard Rock’s existing PR campaigns for its new menu. Views on the videos beat out all prior marketing videos and were second only to their celebrity and musician-based content. All with barely any media dollars.
