Hunting for the Burger Fuel PBJ Burger

I love Burger Fuel and not just because I have affiliations with New Zealand (married a Kiwi, diehard All Blacks fan, I love Cookie Time). I love Burger Fuel because their burgers are huge and always taste great. I also really like their take on the concept of burgers and the interesting way they market their different burger types. They make some really great ‘special edition’ burgers like the ‘Nacho Libre’ which is a chicken burger with corn chips, creamed corn, avocado, cheese, aioli and the usual trimmings. It’s really good and one of my favourites.

Now because I make a habit of trying their amazing special edition burgers, you can imagine my amazement when I saw this sign at the Dubai Mall:

As a non-American, I don’t get the whole ‘PBJ’ craze. Tried it, liked it but can’t understand the hype (I suppose they feel the same about Vegemite but I don’t like it either!). Anyway, they use strawberry instead of grape but it looks very very interesting. I was on my way out of the mall and already had a huge dinner so wasn’t keen on trying this out then and there.

But I went home and Googled it because I wanted to learn more about it (specifically, I was after the social proof to see what the deal was). There was nothing. Nothing on the BurgerFuel AUE Facebook page. Nothing on the Burger Fuel UAE website. Nothing even on the official website (targeted at NZ). I was surprised. Here they were, promoting their latest burger offline, but there was nothing about it online – quelle surprise!

The next day we happened to go past the Burger Fuel drive-thru on Jumeirah Road so we popped in to check out the burger. Even the staff there had no idea about the latest Burger Fuel PBJ burger. In fact, they insisted the only special edition burger out right now is the Nacho Libre. I like that burger but was really after the PBJ one. As of writing this blog post (Sunday 27 April, 1am, Dubai time), there’s no updates on the mysterious Burger Fuel PBJ burger. I’m guessing this blog post might be the first and only thing about it for a while…

But the marketer in me sees this as a problem (which to Burger Fuel’s credit is a rare slip up): inconsistency with offline and online. If you’re going to promote something offline, make sure it matches up online (and vice versa). I’ve lost count how many times I’ve seen billboards and posters for online promos only to find out the website doesn’t have any info about it (or doesn’t actually allow you to make good on the offer). And vice versa.

The sign I saw didn’t say anything about this being only offered at Dubai Mall or that there was a special launch date (or date range) for the offer so I’m even more perplexed. Given Burger Fuel’s usually active approach to social media, I’m expecting them to respond to this somehow!

UPDATE: As expected, the team at Burger Fuel reached out to me on Facebook, Twitter and on here in the blog comments about the matter – turns out the mall jumped the gun with the poster! 

Anyway, if you’ve never tried Burger Fuel, I strongly suggest you do so. Seriously awesome burgers. And don’t ask which one – because they’re all good!