Elaborating on the topic, he cited Burger King's permanent reintroduction of Chicken Fries to its stores in early 2015. This offering was originally launched in 2005, axed in a 2012 menu overhaul, and then reappeared for a limited period in late 2014. And whenever the product was not on sale, it provoked anguish – especially among millennials and members of Generation Z.

"Conversation across social kind of exploded from the day we took it off," said Hirschhorn. This outpouring reached a peak during the first quarter of last year, when – according to monitoring by Code and Theory, the QSR's digital agency – every three mentions of "Burger King" on social media saw one reference to "Chicken Fries".

In feeding its youthful target's desire for both their favourite snack and sharable content, the firm unveiled a digital keyboard full of Chicken Fries-themed emojis to coincide with its long-term commitment to the product. Small symbols of this kind can be inserted in messages sent via apps like Kik and Tango, and have also attracted firms including 1-800-Flowers and MillerCoors.

"The people that were talking about it were 13-24-year-olds. And the way they talk about it is mostly through emojis, which is kind of crazy. And they didn't have an ability to use Chicken Fries emojis. So it was quite obvious to us that this was our campaign," said Hirschhorn.

"We basically just reinserted ourselves into a conversation that was already existing, that was relevant to our brands, about one of our products – and in relevant ways."

Employing emojis in this way fed into the second principle informing Burger King's usage of "storymaking" – namely, flipping the traditional bias towards creative and away from media on its head. "We actually think that the equation is inverted – and that all great ideas today need to be great media ideas," said Hirschhorn.

"Creativity is the business tool that we – collectively, as an industry – chose to use to drive whatever business we are involved in … So, all great ideas need to be rooted in a great media idea, where creativity is applied as an amplifier and a multiplier effect on top of that media idea. And then we use our various distribution channels to help us drive our business."

Source: Warc, Stephen Whiteside