It appears that in the last few days, there are a handful of bloggers who, by finding wallets on the ground, have unwittingly stumbled across the latest under-the-radar Burger King promotion. The fast food chain has dispensed agents across major U.S. cities (indications are it’s just been Chicago and Orlando so far ) to “lose” wallets. However, when unsuspecting passersby find these wallets and open them, they discover an interesting message:

Yep, the wallets include notes telling the individuals who find them to go ahead and keep the wallets. Time Out Chicago reported on November 12th that Burger King planned to drop 5,000 of these wallets around urban hot spots in Chicago. A handful of bloggers have found some of these wallets, and are reporting that they contain actual cash, ranging from a $1 bill to a $100 bill, a gift card to Burger King, a “Drivers License” featuring The King, and a map of Chicago or Orlando area Burger King’s.

Related: Wondering what to buy when you find a Burger King wallet? Try the Angry Whopper BK Unveils the Burger King Angry Whopper

Several bloggers have posted about their experience, or their friend’s experience, finding one of these wallets. See HERE, HERE and HERE for more on their stories. A couple of PR and marketing bloggers are weighing in as well, praising the promotion and calling it “unexpected and well-timed” given the current state of the economy.

This story hasn’t even bubbled up to the mainstream media yet. A Google News search for “Burger King” + “wallet” yields only one mainstream media story, from an NBC station in Chicago. Nor have stories about this promotion appeared yet on major marketing sites such as Adage or Adfreak.

This is a brilliant marketing move, and the mainstream media seems to be lagging behind on discovering it – but creative and unique marketing ideas like this one don’t go unnoticed forever. I expect much more widespread attention for this promotion as the word-of-mouth affect begins to trickle up the mainstream media.

Pictures via Ted.me.

Update: Apparently this idea isn’t original – Josh and Melanie point out in the comments that McDonald’s did something similar a couple years ago, as did GE Financial.

Update #2: An e-mailer and a commenter on Digg are reporting that these wallets were also spotted on the Arizona State and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s campuses.

117 Responses

  1. clean the world

    This is realy littering and if Me or you was to do this we would get a ticket for this. so just because they are a big corporation they can get away with it. I think someone should make the pay as we would.

    Reply
  3. Ana

    instead of spending their money on useless promotions burger king should be paying farmworkers a more fair price for the tomatoes they use (search coalition of immakolee workers)

    Reply
  5. Sarah

    I am going to fill the wallets with gift certificates to my website and a darling poem about being beautiful inside and out! When you put the “woman together then the world comes together” and if I can help one more woman know how great she really is by helping her be pretty then it will be a great day! This is going to be so much fun!

    Reply
  6. Elizabeth Neal

    Businesses are thinking outside the box instead of paying millions for tv advertising. In addition, this also creates more word or mouth advertising!
    And the people who find the wallets get a little unexpected bonus to their day!

    Reply

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