WPP’s David Documents the Rise and Fall of ‘Subservient Chicken’ for Burger King

Today Burger King dropped the first spot by its new global AOR, WPP agency David.

As a faux “where are they now” covering the CP+B original’s fall from fame and return to viral advertising, it’s about as meta as you would expect.

It’s also more than a little “Rocky”: there’s an Italian trainer; there’s an instrumental montage; there’s at least one raw egg; there’s Screech as a costumed Mexican chicken fighter.

The campaign isn’t as interactive as its predecessor; while the rollout included a series of missing person-style print ads, viewers can’t tell this chicken what to do (and yes, we know the responses were pre-recorded in 2004).

The big question, given the spot’s very open-ended conclusion and the fact that BK CMO Eric Hischorn told USA Today that “[The Chicken] will stick around going forward”: where will the sequel go?

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Ed Norton Sings Karaoke, Almost Dies Several Times in New Droid Spot

This one’s been making the rounds for awhile now, but we thought we’d give some love anyway. McgarryBowen New York’s new spot for Verizion, “A Lot Can Happen in 48 Hours” features the talents of Ed Norton. It originally aired on December 5th, although it was posted to YouTube about a week before that.

In the spot, directed by Matthijs van Heijningen, Norton is thrown into a variety of dicey situations, with his Droid helping him get through most of them relatively unscathed. “A Lot Can Happen in 48 Hours” opens with Norton waking up to find himself in a strange room, with his Droid still at 3% power. “It’s been an interesting 48 hours,” Norton says, followed by a flashback. We then follow Norton through his series of misadventures, which begins with him finding a lost wallet and using Droid to find the location. This leads Norton to a karaoke bar, where he ogles a taken woman while singing “If I Could Turn Back Time” (the funniest part of the spot).

From here, Norton’s misadventures include attempting to land a plane, being held captive, having a key found in his stomach, playing a high-stakes game of Connect Four, and being held captive once again. Its everything-goes-wrong brand of humor borrows a little bit from The Hangover series, and although the spot seems to employ the kind of random connections Grey NY used in their 2012 DirectTV campaign, the superior execution helps keep it from feeling too easy or derivative. The spot uses a clever setup to promote the Droid’s impressive battery life, and then finds ways to showcase the phone’s other features in the process. This is certainly a far cry better than McgarryBowen Chicago’s disastrous “Denskies” campaign for Sears. Bonus points for the excellent use of a Lykke Li song. Credits after the jump. continued…

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