The idea was to re-introduce The King through a series of stealthily yet strategically planned appearances that would enmesh the brand into pop culture and make people say “Holy S#%&, The King is back.”

We would achieve this by this by strategically folding The King into the fabric of far-reaching sporting events, and building his return to be so big people couldn’t help but take to Twitter, Snapchat, and other social channels to share the news.

We identified the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight and the Belmont Stakes as the stages for The King’s revival. He would kick things off by walking to the ring alongside Floyd Mayweather for the “Fight of the Century,” making his first spotlight appearance in 5 years. One month later he would stand next to Bob Baffert in his box watching as American Pharoah won the first Triple Crown in 37 years.

We drew attention to The King at the peak viewership moments in the broadcasts by positioning him where he would receive clear and unmistakable exposure.

Furthermore, to ensure a social media explosion surrounding The King’s return, we enlisted celebrities Mike Tyson and Anna Kendrick to post about it on Twitter. We also worked with Snapchat, granting them pre-show snaps of The King in Mayweather’s dressing room.

We intentionally did not secure marketing rights from Mayweather or Baffert and did not supplement these placements with traditional sponsorship or media assets.

We shaped the narrative: The King was there because he belonged, not because of a paid integration. We wanted The King’s presence to speak for itself, to let the public relish it organically.

Our deliberate statement to any press inquiries following the integrations was simply “We don’t call him The King for nothing.”

With The King in the limelight, the crowd- and the business -roared. The fight topped 4.4 million pay-per-view buys; it was estimated there were 10 viewers per pay per view, translating to over 40 million viewers.

The King’s Mayweather moment was one of the most reoccurring topics discussed in association with the #1 trending hashtag worldwide (#maypac). Conversation volume peaked at 24,246 tweets per minute; 159,217 tweets were generated within 24-hours of the fight. At the Belmont Stakes, the King’s appearance with Bob Baffert was the #2 trending topic on twitter with over 15,500 tweets in minutes.

The Return of the King stunts generated 1.9 billion PR impressions.

Attribution, awareness, and brand recognition of Burger King spots all sky-rocketed. And Sales? They increased too, at a record breaking rate. As of October 2015 every month of 2015 sales was the highest recorded for that particular month in the company’s history.