The Ridiculous Amount Of Food Burger King Is Selling For Only $2
What can you get for $2 these days? Not much: not a pound of ground beef, and not quite a gallon of milk. At Burger King, though, you can get a new Snack Box deal that sounds more like a full meal: a cheeseburger, 10 chicken nuggets, medium fries, and a soda. That would be a big snack at around 1,300 calories, including a sugary soft drink. The offer is available for $3 in places like New York City (via Business Insider), where costs tend to be a little higher.
As Burger King was no doubt happy to see, the deal generated a lot of buzz on Twitter. One Twitter user, @Trap_Lebron, said something to suggest that BK might be responding to a recent low-cost meal deal at McDonald's: "Does Burger King have your attention with their new $2 snack box or are you still down with McDonald's Travis Scott?"
Other people on Twitter were skeptical. "That $2 snack box @ Burger King is fishy as hell. Like you're really offering 10pc nuggets, medium size fries, a cheeseburger, AND a small drink...for $2??? Bye. Something ain't right about that!" @thepizzapopo_ tweeted. Another user pondered what the Snack Box moniker really implies. "The $2 Burger King 'Snack' Box subtlety implies that a Burger King 'Meal' Box exists for an equally cheap price somewhere within our realm. I refuse to entertain the idea of how much food that must consist of."
Burger King stepped up on Twitter to confirm the deal was real, but it's not something you can simply ask for at the drive-thru. You need to pick up the coupon from the Burger King app or through its website.
How the $2 Snack Box makes sense for Burger King
Does the $2 deal even make business sense? Twitter user @kingkroll14 joked that Burger King's offer reduced his economics professor to a crying mess. Joking aside, economics professors do have a ready explanation for such a good deal.
The principle at play is called elasticity of demand. Simply put, if more people buy your food after you lower the price (elasticity of demand), you can make more money at the end of the day even if the profit on each sale is less. This assumes, of course, that you aren't selling $2.50 worth of food for $2. That's the exact situation Burger King franchisees found themselves in, back in 2009. The corporate office forced them to sell a double cheeseburger for $1 that cost them $1.10 to make, and they sued (via BBC). The franchisees agreed to drop the lawsuit in exchange for more control over prices (via Reuters). This concession to owners probably explains why the new BK Snack Box is $3 in some places.
Burger King is most likely trying to lure customers who might otherwise go to McDonald's for that Travis Scott meal or the new Spicy McNuggets. As the BBC reported, fast-food discounts are meant to attract customers away from rivals and create new loyal fans of their brand. Another key for Burger King is that the deal is only available online, which means the chain can gather data on customers as people place their orders.
Burger King is always looking for innovative ways to draw customers
You can really get a grasp at how truly cheap this meal is when you consider that the Burger King cheeseburger by itself routinely sells for half the price of this entire meal — and you get way more food and a drink with the Snack Box for just $1 more. It is likely this will be an effective way to get more people in the doors, and really, compared to other advertising efforts put into place by Burger King over the years, this $2 promotion seems quite tame. It's possible that its complete inoffensiveness might draw more customers in than their collection of questionable ads may have been able to do in the past.
Just this year, the company has created ads featuring a moldy burger to prove that their ingredients are real and will decompose over time, ran a brief ad campaign centering on cow farts, and Burger King Japan has attempted to ugly shame their own products with a new ad about the Ugly Beef Burger.
While the Snack Box doesn't provide any brand new menu items, Twitter users still used this as a chance to review it on the social media platform. "I got the $2 snack box from Burger King and I Iost the feeling in the left side of my body," writes one, while others just want to experience it in all its fast food glory: "Thinking about getting a $2 snack box from Burger King and calling it a day," writes @yeemott.