Burger King’s journey to reassure (or convince) customers that its burgers are made with simple ingredients began in earnest with its boundary-pushing, multi award-winning Moldy Whopper campaign back in February. That campaign, which showed Burger King sandwiches moldering over a month as a way of highlight the lack of preservatives, even recently won one of…
Anyone who watched an NFL game on Sunday saw a short teaser commercial about 100 times where Cheetos spokescat Chester Cheetah and Burger King mascot the King were seen sitting together at a BK restaurant, all exciting about … something.
That something wasn’t made clear, although the King did put a handful of Chicken Fries on the table, hinting at the possibility of a forthcoming Cheetos Chicken Fries menu item, to go along with the Burger King Mac n’ Cheetos introduced over the summer.
Not many people know that Burger King pulled out of France for 15 years between 1997 and 2012. Because it didn’t. But the fast-food chain gleefully imagines such a nightmare scenario in a new seven-minute mockumentary from agency Buzzman.
For something proposed as a peace offering, this McWhopper idea from Burger King sure seems to be escalating the burger wars.
Last night, Denny’s blitzed its Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts with the proposal to partner with Burger King on creating “a Slampper© or a Whammper© or a Whoppaslamus-rex© or something.”
The diner chain is volunteering as tribute in these hunger games to take the place of McDonald’s, which meekishly declined Burger King’s invitation this week to create a McWhopper in honor of Peace Day.
hey @burgerking how about a Slampper© or a Whammper© or a Whoppaslamus-rex© or something? pic.twitter.com/zWHXfgIPYV
— Denny’s (@DennysDiner) August 27, 2015
(As of this morning, Burger King hadn’t responded, but you can bet the socially irrepressible chain has something in the works.)
As we at AdFreak discovered by assembling our own McWhopper, the not-so-subtle goal of Burger King’s proposal likely was to show how much larger and generally dominant the Whopper is when paired alongside a Big Mac.
Denny’s seems to be supplanting that strategy by offering to put its even beefier burgers into the mix, potentially dwarfing the Whopper’s flavor profile. Denny’s fans, like this one on Facebook, don’t seem to think they’d get much out of the deal: “C’mon Denny’s… don’t stoop to their level. Ever since you changed your burgers a couple of years ago, Denny’s is light years ahead of any of the junk Burger King or McDonald’s sells!”
PS: Boss, please don’t make me go create and try this myself. I promised my kids I’d live to see them graduate middle school.
As a wise Jeff Goldblum once put it, we were so busy wondering if we could, we didn’t ask if we should.
Well I’m here to tell you: No. No we should not.
Burger King deserves credit for its masterful PR move this morning of running full-page newspaper ads offering to partner with mega-rival McDonald’s on a McWhopper, created in celebration of Peace Day.
This beefy olive branch was described as “the tastiest bits of your Big Mac and our Whopper, united in one delicious, peace-loving burger.”
Sadly, the world will never know what such a combination might have looked or tasted like, because McDonald’s quickly declined the invitation.
But it was too late for those of us at Adweek, who were already obsessing over this mythological beast of a burger.
As for me, I’m a man of action. So I texted an accomplice, drove to Burger King and then headed across the street to McDonald’s. Bags in hand, we settled in at a nearby park and commenced with our foray into forbidden science.
Part 1: What we bought
For fairness, I matched up the Big Mac with the Double Whopper with Cheese. We got two of each, along with some Chicken Fries and McDonald’s fries, which are normally the only things I’d buy at either chain.
Finally, we were ready to unite them in body and spirit.
Part 2: How we assembled the meaty manticores
Here’s the challenge I put to myself and my laudably accommodating friend, Tanya:
“It’s like when two people in their 30s get married. They both have a lot of stuff, so you have to decide what gets kept and what gets tossed when they move in together. So what survives the Big Mac-Whopper marriage?”
My version:
Top bun: Whopper
Top meat: Whopper
Middle bun: Big Mac
Bottom meat: Whopper
Bonus meat: Big Mac
Bottom bun: Whopper
Tanya’s Version:
Top bun: Big Mac
Top meat: Whopper
Middle bun: The top bun from a Whopper
Bottom meat: Big Mac
Bottom bun: Big Mac
Part 3: How they tasted
Mine: Like way too much low-grade beef. Admittedly, I included a combined total of three patties, so the meat-to-not-meat ratio was regrettable. Also, with so much mayo slathered on the Whopper bun and special sauce on the Big Mac components, the texture was rather disturbingly … creamy. I ate half of it and then it basically just disintegrated into primordial muck.
Tanya’s: “The first thing you taste is the Whopper. The Whopper’s larger, and has more of a distinct taste regardless. No matter what, you just taste The Whopper.” So there you go, the McWhopper is basically just an overly expensive and logistically challenging-to-assemble Whopper.
Part 4: Our recommendation for those trying this at home
Well, for one: Don’t.
Nothing about this experiment felt worthwhile, other than the fact it was a good excuse to catch up with a friend on a lovely late-summer day. If the weather is crappy and you hate being around other people, I certainly don’t recommend trying this.
But if you must, we recommend Tanya’s approach:
Top bun: Big Mac
Top meat: Whopper
Middle bun: Whopper top bun
Bottom meat: Big Mac
Bottom bun: Big Mac
Part 5: Bonus creation – Chick ‘n’ Fries
Now this was a mashup we could get behind:
David São Paulo launched a new campaign promoting the Big King for Burger King, the chain’s new competition for McDonald’s Big Mac.
The agency created a new online spot in which it found five people around the world who were such big fans of the Big Mac that they had an image of the burger tattooed on their body in visible places. Each of the Big Mac fanatics, from Brazil, Taiwan, the United States, Spain and Italy, was sent an invitation to come to São Paulo to try Burger King’s new burger and test their brand loyalty. Predictably, each of the Big Mac fans liked Burger King’s version even better, but the agency didn’t stop there. They brought in Miami Ink tattoo artist Ami James to transform their tattoos into the flame-grilled Big King. Each of the participants, save for one who didn’t want to change the tattoo he shared with his brother, went along with the transformation and now have an image of the Big King where there was once a Big Mac. That its competitors biggest fans were willing to have the Big King permanently displayed on their bodies is a fairly compelling testament to the Big King, but the story is simple enough that it could have been told in half of its three-minute runtime.
“Leaving old habits behind can sometimes bring us pleasant surprises in life, and that’s what we wanted to convey in this Big King campaign,” said Ariel Grunkraut, marketing director for Burger King in Brazil. “We found out that people are indeed open to change, and they often find that it can bring both
something positive and surprising.”
“Sometimes reality surpasses fiction,” added David Brazil creative vice president Rodrigo Grau. “In literally one month we traveled the world seeking the most fanatical fans of our competitor, to convert them into Big King fanatics. An idea as difficult to accomplish as it was fascinating.”
Credits:
Agency: DAVID São Paulo
Client: Burger King Brasil
Creative VP: Rodrigo Grau
Creative Director: Edgard Gianesi
Art Directors: Diego Barboza, Jean Zamprogno, Bruno Luglio
Copywriters: João Gandara, Fernando Pellizzaro, Ivan Guerra
Executive Producer: Mariane Goebel
Producer: Renata Neumann
Head of Planning: Fernando Ribeiro
Planning Director: Luiz Arruda
Planning Supervisor: André Gonçalves
Account Director: Carol Vieira
Account Supervisor: Natalia Rakowitsch
Account Executive: Natalie Bursztyn
Account Assistant: Fernanda Feldmann
CLIENT
SVP Global Brand Management: Fernando Machado
Marketing Director: Ariel Grunkraut
Marketing Manager: Kellen Silverio
Marketing Coordinator: Thais Nascimento
Marketing Analyst: Lariane Duarte
PRODUCTION
Production Company: Crane.TV
Executive Producer: Constantin Bjerke
Director: Vandalo
Director of Photography: Daniel Venosa
Head of Brand Solutions: Pernille Raven
Producer: Julieta Biasotti
International Account Manager: Cecilia Temke
Editorial and Online: Cutu Benedict
Producer São Paulo: Juliana Pacheco
Producer Milano: Iacopo Carapelli
Producer Madrid: Beatriz Collado
Producer Taiwan: Lucie Wang
Producer Brasília: Jetro Ositeky
Producer Los Angeles: Felix Reyes
Music and Audio Post: Antfood
Account: Lou Schmidt / Sean McGovern
Audio Producers: Pedro Botsaris / Lou Schmidt / Wilson Brown
Food Stylist: Paula Rainho
The King is back.
Burger King’s plastic-faced creep of a monarch is making his return to broadcast today in a new 15-second spot created by Pitch. The spot, entitled “Smile” is a relatively simple affair, promoting the ten chicken nuggets for $1.49 deal that “will put a smile on anybody’s face.” With the delivery of that line, the camera pans up to show the King smiling while dipping his nuggets.
The ad makes Burger King the latest fast food player to resurrect a nostalgic character, following McDonald’s new Hamburglar and KFC rebooting Colonel Sanders, portrayed by Darrell Hammond in W+K’s first campaign for the brand. The King made a costly appearance last month in the ring with Floyd Mayweather, a questionable decision on the brand’s part (to say the least) given Mayweather’s history of domestic violence, but this is his first appearance on broadcast since the character stopped appearing in ads in February of 2011. Given the trend of fast food brands reviving old characters, we’ll be surprised if the King doesn’t pop up at least a few more times this year.
“The King has been breaking status quo for decades and has earned his space in pop culture,” Burger King chief marketing officer Eric Hirschhorn told AdFreak. “He conveys the confident and bold spirit of the Burger King brand, which you can see comes to life in everything we do.”
No word yet on a Sneak King sequel.
Credits:
Client: Burger King
Agency: Pitch, Inc.
Chief Creative Officer: Xanthe Wells
Exec Design Director/Creative Director: Helena Skonieczny
ACD/Copywriter: Heather Parke
ACD/Art Director: Kimberly Linn
Account Director: Audrey Jersin
Account Executive: Christina Gocoglu
Director of Broadcast: Julie Salik
Production Coordinator: Ivana Banh
CFO/COO: Pej Sabat
Chief Strategy Officer: Sara Bamossy
Jr. Strategist: Lexi Whalen
President: Rachel Spiegelman
Editorial Company: Bicep Productions
Editor: Nate Connella
Asst. Editor: Gary Burns
Editorial Producer: Esther Gonzalez
Animation & VFX: Terry Politis
Color: Bob Festa, Company 3
Audio Post Company: Bicep Productions
Engineer: Luis Rosario
Production Company: Woodshop
Director: Trevor Shepard
Executive Producer: Sam Swisher
Producer: Ursula Camack
Director of Photography: Tom Lazaravich
Music: Motive Music Sound
Composer: Jeremy Adelman
Producer: Samanta Balassa
You can’t keep a good King down.
Burger King’s creepy, plastic-faced King character, who was sidelined from TV ads four years ago, will return Monday night in prime time in a 15-second commercial for a Chicken Nuggets deal—his first appearance in a BK spot since February 2011.
The ad, created by Pitch Inc., isn’t much to look at creatively. But it affirms BK’s commitment to the character even after his long absence from TV.
“The King has been breaking status quo for decades and has earned his space in pop culture. He conveys the confident and bold spirit of the Burger King brand, which you can see comes to life in everything we do,” BK CMO Eric Hirschhorn tells AdFreak.
The King hasn’t been totally AWOL. He did, oddly enough, walk in with Floyd Mayweather and his entourage at last month’s big boxing match against Manny Pacquiao. That appearance cost BK a cool $1 million, Fortune reported, though it didn’t go over well with domestic violence advocates who oppose any deals with Mayweather, given his history with women.
CREDITS
Client: Burger King
Agency: Pitch, Inc.
Chief Creative Officer: Xanthe Wells
Exec Design Director/Creative Director: Helena Skonieczny
ACD/Copywriter: Heather Parke
ACD/Art Director: Kimberly Linn
Account Director: Audrey Jersin
Account Executive: Christina Gocoglu
Director of Broadcast: Julie Salik
Production Coordinator: Ivana Banh
CFO/COO: Pej Sabat
Chief Strategy Officer: Sara Bamossy
Jr. Strategist: Lexi Whalen
President: Rachel Spiegelman
Editorial Company: Bicep Productions
Editor: Nate Connella
Asst. Editor: Gary Burns
Editorial Producer: Esther Gonzalez
Animation & VFX: Terry Politis
Color: Bob Festa, Company 3
Audio Post Company: Bicep Productions
Engineer: Luis Rosario
Production Company: Woodshop
Director: Trevor Shepard
Executive Producer: Sam Swisher
Producer: Ursula Camack
Director of Photography: Tom Lazaravich
Music: Motive Music Sound
Composer: Jeremy Adelman
Producer: Samanta Balassa
Turkish artist Mehmet Gozetlik has created a fascinating study in iconography with his latest work, titled “Chinatown,” where he deconstructs popular Western-based logos and reinterprets them in Chinese.
The resulting work is an interesting study in the effectiveness of a mark, and a true testament to the indelible impression these logos have in our minds. In the video below, Gozetlik shows us a glimpse into his process of creating one of his neon-sign designs into an actual neon sign:
“Chinatown is a Chinese translation of the trademarks in a graphical way” says the artist on his website.
“It’s a carefully arranged series of artworks showcasing 20 well-known Western brand logos with maintained visual and narrative continuity. ‘Chinatown’ pushes viewers to ask themselves what it means to see, hear, and become fully aware. ‘Chinatown’ also demonstrates our strangeness to 1.35 billion people in the world, when you can’t read Chinese.”
Instead of simply translating the brand names into Chinese, the logos include a generic description of the product written in Chinese. So, even for those fluent in Chinese, the logos appear somewhat unbranded.
Take a look below at some of these interesting studies in branding and see if you can figure them out on first glance:
Mastercard
Starbucks
Shell Gasoline
Lego
Burger King
London Underground
Converse
Levi’s Jeans
Chiquita Bananas
NASA
7-11
Lufthansa
Diet Pepsi
Martini
Via Design Boom.
If you’re apartment hunting for a three bedroom/two bath/one Burger King, this might be the spot for you.
Spanish agency La Despensa equipped a tasty pad in downtown Madrid with a BK kitchen and menu counter for a stunt touting the arrival of the chain’s home delivery service. You’ve got familiar brand signage, colorful meal displays and even some guy named Michael, dressed in a BK uniform, ready to take your order.
Because the agency listed the unit on local real-estate websites for roughly half its market value, “we had around 800 calls in five days asking to see the place,” La Despensa creative director Luis Monroy tells AdFreak. Hidden cameras recorded the reactions of prospective tenants, who seem amused and pretty psyched about the experience.
“It took around three days to assemble the restaurant after weeks of searching for the perfect place,” Monroy says. “Can you imagine what it’s like to carry up all the kitchen tools, digital screens for the menu-board … and the bar of 300 kilos to the third floor with no elevator?” Members of the marketing team, production company and agency all pitched in to help with the heavy lifting.
Of course, authentic BK cuisine was served. “It is a much more complete experience with a Whopper in your hands,” Monroy says. Soon after it finished the video, La Despensa (which translates to “The Pantry”—perfect, right?), the apartment, which really had been on the market, was snapped up, “unfortunately without the restaurant, and at a higher price.”
This well done prank manages to stay on-point and satisfy without seeming overcooked. And that’s kind of rare in this category.
Billy Eichner’s persona on his show Billy on the Street is so memorable that as soon as fans saw the Burger King ad below, they immediately though of Eichner—and began lobbing insults at BK and calling the agency behind it lazy.
Man on the street characters are anything but new, but Eichner’s scream-filled spin is a fresh take that has endeared fans and celebrities alike. The BK spot, with its own shrieking spokesman, might not hit exactly the same notes, but you can understand the grumbling.
Also, the BK spot just isn’t that funny. Eichner’s show isn’t hilarious because of the format; it’s hilarious because of Eichner himself. The BK spot isn’t on YouTube. But of course, in the the Internet age, any imitation will be discovered—and ridiculed—eventually, whether it’s a sketch show celebrating its 40-year run or a 15 second spot.
Burger King did not immediately respond to AdFreak’s requests for comment. But as you can see, McDonald’s has already weighed in.
@billyeichner Can’t wait to see you! Oh, and bring Elena!
— McDonald’s (@McDonalds) October 13, 2014
Check out some of the other tweets below.
Hey @billyeichner you know you’ve made it when Burger King has a man on the street commercial with a guy yelling at passersby about burgers.
— scharpling (@scharpling) October 13, 2014
Please tweet @BurgerKing & tell them to stop stealing from #BillyOntheStreet. Then I’m going over there & I’m gonna FLAME BROIL HIS DICK.
— billy eichner (@billyeichner) October 13, 2014
An ad agency knew @billyeichner‘s bit well enough to sell it @BurgerKing. And thus should also know better than to fuck with Billy Eichner.
— Bryan (@bryanlark) October 13, 2014
Dear @burgerking, if @billyeichner stalked ppl in the street in a giant weird plastic head & royal robes selling his meat,YOU’d be SO PISSED
— Adam Shankman (@adammshankman) October 13, 2014
Yo @BurgerKing, stop stealing from the hilarious @billyeichner and stick to what you’re good at: giving me diarrhea.
— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) October 13, 2014
Hey @burgerking, you were stupid if you think hiring some random actor to rip off @billyeichner was going to work. I WAS AVAILABLE!!!
— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) October 13, 2014
Want a burger to match your soul? Burger King Japan’s black burgers may fit the bill.
The Kuro Burger—translation, “black burger”—and deluxe sibling the Kuro Diamond Burger don dark trimmings, including a black bun made from squid ink and bamboo charcoal, as well as black cheese infused with bamboo charcoal (or possibly made from emo cows). Oh, and that dark, oozing substance? That’s black onion, garlic and squid ink sauce.
To be fair, these burgers are back in black. Kotaku says both McDonald’s China and Burger King Japan debuted ebony eats in 2012. That same year, French fast-food chain Quick blackened its buns to honor Darth Vader in a Star Wars-themed burger series.
Embrace your dark side starting Sept. 19.
Via the Wall Street Journal’s Japan Real Time.
Five years after a famously suggestive Burger King ad ran in Singapore, the woman who appeared in it—without her permission, she says—has publicly excoriated the fast-food chain for humiliating her.
The woman, who has not revealed her identity, posted a YouTube video on Tuesday in which she explains her side of the story. And it isn’t pretty.
“Burger King found my photo online from a series I did of various facial expressions and contortion poses, and with no due regard to me as a person, profited off reducing me to an orifice for their penis sludge; publicly humiliating me in the process,” she writes in the video description.
“Friends, family, coworkers, prospective employers who saw it assume I was a willing player. Those offended by it don’t know the extent of what’s wrong with the ad; that I didn’t know about this being done to my image, let alone agree to or pose for the scenario.”
The woman even likens BK’s treatment of her image to sexual assault: “I believe in sexual expression in art and the media; it’s beautiful and necessary for a healthy society but IT MUST BE CONSENSUAL otherwise it’s RAPE.”
She ends her missive with the hashtag #SuckOnYourOwnSlimySevenIncher.
The 2009 ad has truly become a famous “badvertising” image. Indeed, the woman says it was just recently the topic of discussion in a large media studies class at a university in Toronto, where she lives.
In an email sent last year to ad blogger Copyranter, the woman said she had only just found out about the ad and was looking into her legal options.
BK did not explicitly apologize for the ad back in 2009, when it appeared on a number of ad blogs, including this one. But it did release a statement saying it “values and respects all of its guests,” and noted that the ad ran only in Singapore and in no other markets.
AdFreak has reached out to BK for comment on the new video. We’ll update when we hear back. Below is the full ad, and the woman’s complete description on her YouTube video:
Burger King found my photo online from a series I did of various facial expressions and contortion poses, and with no due regard to me as a person, profited off reducing me to an orifice for their penis sludge; publicly humiliating me in the process. It was shown online as well as on bus stops and the walls and place mats of their restaurant.
When asked for comment from the press Burger King claimed the campaign went down well, however after some research I discovered The Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore (where it was released) received several complaints and the campaign had to be prematurely removed.
This is a top International food chain the world is watching that has a code of ethics they’re required to adhere to for that reason by law but did not in how they went about using my image.
Now due to the coverage its received (Time Magazine’s Top Ten Tasteless Ads, Business Insider, Buzzfeed, Gawker, Psychology Today to name a few) it’s part of the public domain. Just recently it was the topic of discussion in a media studies class of 500 students at the University of Toronto – where I live… and posted to the class Facebook discussion page.
Friends, family, coworkers, prospective employers who saw it assume I was a willing player. Those offended by it don’t know the extent of what’s wrong with the ad; that I didn’t know about this being done to my image, let alone agree to or pose for the scenario.
Why not hire a model to pose with the sandwich?
There is something VERY wrong with the fact that they felt entitled to do that to my face without signing a contract with me.
I believe in sexual expression in art and the media; it’s beautiful and necessary for a healthy society but IT MUST BE CONSENSUAL otherwise it’s RAPE.
Nice family restaurant you’re running there Burger King.
#boycottbk #facerape
#SuckOnYourOwnSlimySevenIncher
Earlier this year, the home of the Whopper slapped the advertising world with one of its own by parting ways with lead agency Mother. It was a public divorce attributed to the all-too-familiar “creative differences.”
Now something else is grilling: Burger King just announced that it has found a new home for its 40-year-slogan in the tagline cemetery. The new line is “Be your way,” because nothing could be more personal than ordering a No. 2 with a large carbonated beverage.
Witness the strategery in action after the jump.
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The only thing Subservient Chicken got on his 5th birthday in 2009 was a blog post about how the agencies involved in his creation bickered over who really deserved credit. For his 10th birthday, though, the chicken flies again.
Except, actually, he's been grounded. The initial idea behind the new campaign—which promotes the Chicken Big King sandwich—is that the chicken has gone missing. BK placed half-page ads in a handful of Sunday newspapers asking if people had seen him. The photo above was posted to Twitter.
The subservientchicken.com website is live again, too, but brings up a 2004-style error message, which you can see below, and also includes some crudely Photoshopped surveillance images showing the chicken's most recent whereabouts. A short movie about the fleeting fame of Internet celebrities is expected to hit the site on Wednesday morning, followed by more creative executions.
It's not too surprising that BK is going back to the well on this one—many fast-food joints tend to revisit their big successes at some point or other. And Subservient Chicken was the go-to example of innovate digital advertising for years. Also, it's been so long since his heyday that lots of younger people simply have never heard of the chicken. As one fan wrote on Twitter of the missing-person teaser: "You guys buy Chick-fil-a?"
Burger King is officially conducting a global ad review after performing a bit of a two-step in recent months.
On splitting with Crispin Porter & Bogusky in 2011, the company moved on from its infamous “king” spots to work with CHI & Partners in the UK and Mother New York in the US. Earlier this year, company leaders hinted at changes in the UK after beginning and then cancelling an agency review; global now seems to be the answer.
Where will the brand go? CHI & Partners’ “We wish Burger King well as they make more global marketing arrangements” statement doesn’t sound particularly confident.
We will note, based on this recent New Zealand campaign from Colenso BBDO, that BK has not lost its desire to be weird.
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It's been years since Burger King's U.S. advertising was truly weird. You have to go back to the Crispin Porter + Bogusky stuff from the mid-2000s—in particular, the deeply troubling "Eat Like Snake" ad from 2006.
Colenso BBDO, however, is keeping BK ads weird for the New Zealand market. Check out the three spots below from director Nick Ball, featuring the most unlikely BK patrons ever—Sir Roger Poppincock and Baron von Cravat, along with an elderly gent on oxygen and his young, pissed-off Russian bride.
Reaction, it's fair to say, has been mixed.
"Hey Burger King, just have to say I think your latest TV ads are dreadful," one Facebook commenter writes. "So much for a tasteful and family orientated pitch. Do you really think that people would find that funny? Old men with some young girl saying when are you going to die, apart from the obvious stereotypes, ageism and sexism, what about the cultural offense you cause by assuming that women from Russia only marry older men? Not impressed." (BK replied: "We are sorry you're not loving our ads. Thank you for taking the time to let us know your thoughts, we appreciate all feedback."
The chain also got some heat for advertising its lamb burger with a billboard that said: "Cute, cuddly & now delicious." In response to that, another Facebook commenter wrote: "I would like to complain on behalf of vegetarians and vegans about the morally and ethically offensive nature of the 'Cute, cuddly & now delicious' lamb burger billboard in Sandringham. Marketing should have been more considerate."
"Our advertising isn't intended to offend, just to get noticed," the marketer replied. "We hope that there was sufficient humour in this billboard to demonstrate our position and are sorry that this campaign upset you."
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Everyone who's ever tried to watch a video on the Internet knows that pre-roll ads are generally annoying. The Burger King marketing team also knows this. But marketers always want to have their cake and eat it, too. So New Zealand agency Colenso BBDO created dozens of variations on a pre-roll ad featuring a couple of bros making fun of pre-roll ads.
Each spot is themed to match the video that viewers are attempting to watch, and the actors groan in sympathy about having to endure yet another pre-roll ad. So, they consist, more or less, of a couple of guys saying "Oh, sorry guy, were you trying to watch that? Burgers!"
The case study video fulfills its reason for being by exaggerating the effects of the campaign, saying the ads turned "the worst thing on the internet" into "lolz." Credit to BK and the Auckland agency for making the best of a bad thing. It's clever, and viewers will probably find it worthy of a chuckle the first time around. That said, acknowledging you're an interloper doesn't really excuse it.
(Via The Drum).
Heads-up for those at work: Mildly NSFW language at the beginning.
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Between the French Fry Burger and the new Satisfries, Burger King has been really into fries lately. Now, the chain is taking this obsession a step further by pretending to change its name to Fries King—and posting a load of photos to Facebook showing the unveiling of a new corporate identity. There are a few downsides to this. First, it implies the burgers are probably not very good. And second, it confuses people—many of whom on Twitter clearly don't know how to respond. On the plus side, it does appear to be making people hungry.
And you thought we were bluffing. Long live the #FriesKing! http://t.co/NpzauWThzB pic.twitter.com/WJJgB0IL3X
— BurgerKing (@BurgerKing) October 2, 2013
Can't tell if it's true or not but did Burger King really change their name to Fries King…? I don't… what.
— Jacky Cheung (@chaozbandit) October 2, 2013
@BurgerKing change your twitter name then!
— jeffrey (@Ffej_Vobil) October 2, 2013
@mgbales OK, I need to try these.
— Mαtt Thomαs (@mattthomas) October 2, 2013
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Nothing complements flame-grilled perfection better than golden fries, right? The problem is, it's too much work to eat a burger, then put it down, and then pick up, dip and eat a french fry. It's madness really. (Lightbulb!) Thankfully, Burger King has answered our prayers with the "French Fry Burger." It's a burger topped with, you guessed it, delicious french fries. The chain will be offering the flame-grilled masterpiece starting Sept. 1 through the fall for $1 in an effort to push back against McDonald's Dollar Menu. Now, if only Burger King could manage to work out a burger, fry and drink sandwich. Now, that would be impressive.
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