Davis ThinkingThis week Burger King introduced Flame, a “body spray of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat.” The companion website features a variety of backdrops and groovy love tunes that guarantee the perfect ambiance for nibbling the meat-lover in your life. The scent retails for $4 exclusively through Ricky’s and online.
It’s no surprise Burger King likes to take chances. But their recent “Morning Tongue” spot takes things to a new level.
A new Canadian print campaign for Burger King has a little something for everyone: pimps, ho's, drug addicts and, um, self-lovers. Oooh! There’s even mockery of religious iconography. Bonus.
In the circles that count, it’s clear that Chipotle is regarded as a major innovator, attracting what all major innovators attract: copycatting. So it’s no coincidence that after a couple of years of crazy growth from Chipotle, Taco Bell feels it has to step up its game. Thus, this summer the country’s leading quasi-Mexican fast-food chain has rolled out its new Cantina Bell line of upscale menu items.
Amidst falling sales, a revolving door of chief executives, countless attempts to be cool with “The King,” and even a fresh rift with pop diva, Mary J. Blige, we’re told in the latest Burger King ad campaign that “Exciting things are happening at Burger King.” Oh really?
Yesterday, it was official: Wendy's has usurped Burger King as America's second largest burger chain. It finished 2011 with more U.S. revenue, despite operating 1,300 fewer stores. The news, though largely expected -- The Wall Street Journal anticipated the "palace coup" back in December -- is a milestone in the history of fast food.
In the Burger King 15-second spot above, there’s no verbal product description, just a quick ditty about “The ultimate breakfast platter. That's what I call delivering." It's a zippy example of how brand marketers are shrinking their messaging, with the 15-second spot fast becoming the standard length for what used to be a 60-second spot and then the 30-second spot.http://www.unboundedition.com/admin/articlelinks/articlelink/19332/
Procter & Gamble's Old Spice was just another guy brand with an entertaining spokesman in its TV commercials until the brand's agency, Wieden + Kennedy, put Isaiah Mustafa on the Web recently and invited fans to use Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets to pose questions that he quickly answered. The questions poured in--even celebrities asked a few--and Mustafa responded in more than 180 Web videos shot quickly over a few days. The real-time effort was the first of its kind, but it won't be the last. Marketers are eager to find clever new ways to engage consumers online with branded content and interactive advertising that is good enough to make people want to share it with their network of friends.
On June 30, Alex Bogusky went for a bike ride in the hills outside Boulder, Colo., then made his way downtown to the century-old house-cum-studio he had renovated and dubbed FearLess Cottage. Once inside, he called Miles Nadal, his boss in Toronto, and resigned. Bogusky was 46. Adweek had named him creative director of the decade, and the agency he helped build, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, was bringing in more than a billion dollars in billings. He had a dream title of his own making, chief creative insurgent, and a salary close to $2 million. Bogusky's conversation with Nadal, the owner of CP+B's parent company, MDC Partners, was followed by an e-mail. Bogusky hoped Nadal saw him "as a friend who wants to try something new." He signed it, "Love, Alex." Then Bogusky and his wife, Ana, spent much of the afternoon sitting on their porch contemplating what he had just done.
Some of the most familiar names in the restaurant world are moving into the grocer's freezer. P.F. Chang's, Burger King and Jamba Juice all have recently licensed their names for new products to be sold in supermarkets. They join other high-profile restaurant chains including Marie Callender's, Starbucks, T.G.I. Friday's and California Pizza Kitchen, which already have substantial presence at the grocery store.
Today, Seattle’s Best is announcing a major push in its distribution: By partnering with other retailers like Burger King, Subway and AMC Entertainment (one of the largest movie theater chains in the U.S.), to add Seattle’s Best coffee to their menus, bumping its distribution by about 30,000 points of sale. Additionally, Seattle’s Best will be dispensing coffee via vending machines, although I’m not clear how or where. Along with this announcement, a radically new logo has been introduced, designed by Seattle ad agency Creature.
Millions are embracing a hot steaming plate of serious issues served with a side of mockery of the politicians, businessmen and celebrities who populate conventional news. And given this, how big a leap is it for companies to mock themselves as a means to reach audiences? It can be done effectively. Last fall, for instance, we worked with Intuit subsidiary Quicken, issuing a report on Mustached Americans being in greater financial need due to their profligate spending habits on ladies, leather pants and teeth whitening. The result was the most publicity Quicken had ever received and the company reached new consumers in a humorous way.
Burger King is betting big on breakfast with a new national blitz to promote a morning sandwich that's admittedly a lot like McDonald's Egg McMuffin, but cheaper. In a new 30-second commercial from agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky, BK's mascot, the King -- armed with a flashlight and donning a hoodie -- breaks into McDonald's headquarters in the wee hours of the morning to copy the recipe for McD's Sausage McMuffin with Egg sandwich. A voice-over says, "It's not that original but it's super affordable ... egg, sausage and cheese on a toasted English muffin."
The already intense competition for the declining but high-margin breakfast market is about to be pushed up several notches, as the nation's second-largest restaurant chain, Subway, joins the fray. Subway, which has been testing a breakfast menu in some U.S. cities and debuted the options in its approximately 2,000 Canadian units March 1, announced that it will roll out the menu in nearly all of its 23,000 U.S. locations as of April 5.
National advertisers spend more than $120 billion on advertising in local markets and Yahoo wants it. This year the Sunnyvale, Calif., company's sales reps are going after big companies with outlets that advertise in local newspapers and on regional radio stations and Web sites. These marketers include Dunkin' Donuts, Burger King, Pizza Hut, State Farm Insurance and Home Depot. The list goes on and Yahoo intends to call every advertiser on it, offering them the opportunity to target regionally and reach millions of people online.
Last year in one of the longest advertising stalemates in TV's up-front history, broadcast company Univision sold all its inventory before any other network. The reason, Univision's president of advertising and sales David Lawenda says, is that some marketers are finally cluing in to the importance of marketing to Hispanics.
Are you a Burger King “super fan”? If you eat fast-food nine or 10 times per month – then you are. And we all thought it was all about males, ages 18-34 who liked ad campaigns like SpongeBob SquareButt or the Super Seven Incher. But Burger King's same-store sales have been slipping – dropping 3.3 percent in the US and Canada for the second fiscal quarter ending Dec. 31 compared to a 1.9 percent increase the year before. So John Chidsey, BK CEO, recently redefined “super fans” for investors: “To clarify, it’s not just 18-to-34-year-old males, it’s all ages and all household demographics, with over half of them having children. And interestingly, over 29 percent are 50 years of age or older.”
After months of public acrimony, Burger King appears to be letting franchisees have it their way. The chain will raise the price of its $1 double cheeseburger, and is working to resolve pending litigation related to a proposed advertising increase. Burger King has been embroiled in two lawsuits with franchisees, one relating to whether the company can set prices -- stemming from the cheeseburger promotion -- and another pertaining to the chain's right to divert rebates from soft-drink companies to boost advertising spending.
Fast food chains have been vying – rather successfully – for a piece of Starbucks' high-end coffee market by offering customers an improved quality coffee and even free Wi-Fi. However, the heated war for consumer coffee dollars just became a little hotter: Enter Burger King.
For five years, Burger King Holdings Inc. was on a roll, successfully courting its "super fans"—18- to 34-year-olds who account for half of all visits to Burger King restaurants. Thanks to high unemployment and healthier eating habits, those super fans haven't been so super lately. Burger King has felt the impact more acutely than its main rival, McDonald's Corp., whose sales are growing. As Burger King prepares to report earnings this week after two straight quarters of same-store sales declines, the question is whether the chain has relied too heavily on customers that may be permanently changing habits.
Madison Avenue gave a nod to grim economic realities in this year's crop of ads, but also pitched plenty of escapist fare—both inspired and goofy. The industry was struggling through one of the worst business climates it has seen in decades. Global ad spending plummeted 10%, according to ZenithOptimedia, a media-buying company owned by Publicis Groupe. Cash-strapped advertisers cut the fees they pay their advertising firms, and tens of thousands of ad jobs were lost. Some of the country's largest firms, such as WPP's JWT, were forced to close once-thriving outposts in markets such as Chicago. Well-known agencies such as Cliff Freeman & Partners ("Where's the Beef?") were forced to close shop completely. From reviews of major campaigns and interviews with advertising executives, here are our choices for some of the best and worst marketing maneuvers of 2009.
Many big names in fast food are rolling out products geared to drag in slow-to-spend consumers. Today, McDonald's makes official plans to nationally roll out a Dollar Breakfast Menu in January. Burger King is trying to dazzle eaters with $1 double cheeseburgers. The moves come at a time when fast-food giants — many of which initially benefited from the financial meltdown — are seeing sales erode. As a category, fast food has faced falling sales for 28 of the past 30 weeks, reports NPD. McDonald's on Tuesday reported its second-consecutive monthly same-store sales dip in the U.S.
At this year's Media Mavens annual luncheon in New York, Advertising Age honored 16 of the industry's most innovative thinkers from big name marketers including Kraft, Coca-Cola, Ford and Burger King. Honorees, however, had to earn their lunch by answering questions that show off just how smart they are. Here are six bits of wisdom that Ad Age's Media Mavens imparted this year, including what their clients are looking for, what the necessary elements for a successful social media campaign are, how to evolve a well-known brand into a services company and what technologies have the potential to be successful marketing mediums.
Call it the Subservient Shower Girl. Burger King U.K. is inviting young men to watch and interact with a bikini-clad girl as she takes her daily shower, in a new "glorious mornings" promotion which urges consumers to "seize the day your way." The www.singingintheshower.co.uk website is billed as "the world's first guilt-free shower-cam," where visitors can ask a 20-year-old woman to wear a different bikini and sing a different song as she takes her morning shower each day.
McDonald's Corp. is testing and rolling out new products, remodeling restaurants and experimenting with technology as it prepares for a global economic recovery. The burger giant plans to open about 1,000 restaurants and remodel 2,300 existing ones around the world next year, executives told analysts gathered at its headquarters in Oak Brook, Ill., Thursday.
What a difference a decade makes. Just ten years ago, brands were given huge headaches by cyber-squatters: users who had beat them to registering their brand-name Internet URLs and were misrepresenting the brand. No such problems today. Now, brands are given huge headaches by cyber-squatters, users who had beat them to registering their brand-name Twitter accounts and are misrepresenting the brand.
In a Times Square studio last Thursday, actor Ed Norton was interviewed as part of a Diet Coke promotion. The interview was beamed live to billboards in Times Square, as well as on the Diet Coke Web site and banner placements sprinkled on sites like E! Online, Cosmopolitan and Hello. Diet Coke is not the only brand going live to garner attention. Marketers including Burger King and Adidas are warming up to real-time Web content, mirroring a shift in digital media away from asynchronous communication and content delivery (e.g., the sending of e-mails and watching posted videos) towards instant feedback and interaction. Upping the ante for these marketers are real-time systems like Twitter and Facebook, which mix content delivery with communication, making something hours' old seem stale.
Burger King is getting a makeover. At the grand opening of its redesigned restaurant at the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, the fast feeder announced plans to continue rolling out the sleek, futuristic new store designs, dubbed “20/20.” The company plans to revamp all of its nearly 12,000 locations with the new look, including LCD menu screens, corrugated metal and brick walls, as well as an exterior that emphasizes the “Home of the Whopper” tagline, according to the Associated Press. “As we continue to grow and strengthen the brand worldwide, this new restaurant design exemplifies our vision for the brand’s future and reinforces our goal of delivering superior products and positive guest experiences,” BKC chairman and CEO John Chidsey said in a statement.
In a recent ad that Burger King just started running, NASCAR champion Tony Stewart teaches a course to other celebrities about only endorsing brands and products they actually believe in. The ad features Eric Estrada selling his own line of Estrada sunglasses, and an overly botoxed Carrot Top (the comedian) selling his own Carrot Crusher juicing machine (both of which have mock websites selling the fictional products - nice touch by Burger King). Clearly, neither of them understand Tony's point of only endorsing brands you really believe in.
Burger King is putting its celebrity endorsement to the test in a new ad campaign featuring Nascar driver Tony Stewart. Stewart, current point-leader for Nascar Sprint Cup Series and avowed fan of Burger King's Whopper, will have his enthusiasm put to a polygraph test in a series of BK commercials and an online Webcast. The first spot in the campaign features Stewart as a teacher instructing other celebrities how to properly endorse products. Students like comedian Carrot Top and CHiPs star Erik Estrada listen attentively as Stewart offers wisdom such as "only endorse things you believe in."
Burger King is taking its French fries beyond the fast food counter with a new product launch, in partnership with ConAgra Foods. Retailers like Walmart will carry the BK-branded fries, which are produced via a licensing agreement with ConAgra’s Lamb Weston brand. Lamb Weston frozen potatoes and appetizers are sold in both retail and foodservice outlets.
Quick-serves fight in a hypercompetitive environment. Brands duke it out with surprising new products which seem like punches coming out of nowhere and low blows of heavy discounts or free giveaways—not to mention the pot shots lobbed between dueling sassy advertising campaigns.
A Burger King franchisee recently chose to market its outlets by taking a position on a contentious issue. It would be a brilliant move if it wasn't so utterly stupid. I guess they presume their customers are suspicious of the theory of global warming, so declaring the sentiment would 1) get folks' attention, and 2) make them want to buy a Whopper.
While Professor Joe Plummer and I may not see eye to eye on everything (see my post on the definition of engagement), there is one thing we definitely agree on: an enterprise can achieve optimal results only when its business and its brand are aligned to work in synergy. When business and brand are out of synch (as happens all too often), the return to the company and shareholders is compromised.
Online media can be a real paradox—an environment that represents such a wealth of creative opportunity, yet has for so long been a slave to the banner ad. But more brands are rewriting the rules of online ads by growing the dimensions of their ideas beyond the traditional banner or video. Of course bigger is not always better—a bad idea is a bad idea in any size. But with a great idea, breaking the boundaries of traditional online formats can really bring to life what this medium does best.
Restaurant chains are reaching out to consumers in an unexpected place: supermarket aisles. As the economy has soured, many consumers have ditched going out to eat for a trip to the grocery store, and restaurant chains are following.
How do you create edgy, prize-winning work like Burger King's "Whopper Virgins," "Sponge Bob Square Butts" and "Kingon Nipple Pinch"? For Crispin Porter + Bogusky -- agency of the year at 50th anniversary CLIO Awards -- the key is being willing to take risks and stay edgy over the long haul. "We have to keep creating social currency. If we don't, we'll die," said BK CMO Russ Klein, in response to a query about the brand's propensity to court controversy with its frequently polarizing style of advertising. "You have to have the stomach for taking risks. We don't go out of our way to offend people. We do go out of our way to create tension.
Burger King is trying to throw more raw meat on the grill by redirecting marketing funds normally spent by franchisees, and using it to run more corporate branding. We're talking $25 million next year, and $40 million every year through 2022. Its National Franchise Association, which represents the vast majority of those franchisees, has filed two lawsuits to stop it. As I possess friend of the Whopper status, I'd like to submit a brief in support of the complaints.
Madison Avenue is plowing more resources into a new marketing medium: Apple Inc.'s iPhone. In the past several months, companies such as Burger King Holdings Inc., Zippo Manufacturing Co. and Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. have experimented with promotional software applications that can be downloaded onto the iPhone, or they have created ads that are placed within other popular applications for the device.
Burger King Holdings has landed a three-picture deal with a Hollywood studio that it hopes will add star power to its menu. The fast-food chain is teaming up with Viacom's Paramount Pictures to promote the summer releases "Star Trek," "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" and "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra," marking the first time it has worked with a single studio on such a rapid-fire spate of films. It is also the first time Paramount has entered into this sort of multiple-picture ad partnership, says LeeAnne Stables, the studio's executive vice president for world-wide marketing partnerships, who says such deals aren't common.
There's a new Captain Kirk, Spock, Scotty and Uhura for next month's release of Paramount's re-imagining of Star Trek, but there will be some familiar faces in the form of iconic brands and their spokespeople hyping the launch.
Controversy bubbling up from Burger King's Whopper advertising has finally gotten a little too hot for the marketer. The fast feeder has agreed to revise a campaign created by Crispin Porter & Bogusky and airing in Europe for the Texican Whopper, after a Mexican diplomat called it offensive to Mexicans and damaging to the country's image.
Imagine going to Burger King and ordering barbecued ribs, a grilled salmon sandwich or a steak kabob. Those sound more like choices at a casual dining restaurant than a fast-food chain, but they are some of the more than 45 new menu items the Miami-based company has in various stages of testing. Many are premium products designed to appeal to cash-strapped consumers looking to trade down to a more affordable option. The menu innovations are made possible by the long-awaited installation of a new restaurant broiler that allows more flexible cooking times.
A person could go mad trying to pinpoint the moment he lost a friend. So seldom does that friend make his feelings clear by sending out an e-mail alert. It’s not just a fact of life, but also a policy on Facebook. While many trivial actions do prompt Facebook to post an alert to all your friends — adding a photo, changing your relationship status, using Fandango to buy tickets to “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” — striking someone off your list simply is not one of them.
If the eyeballs delivered by the viral nonsense coming from Burger King is considered marketing, then so should a car wreck.
Burger King's Whopper Sacrifice took a novel approach for an application: rather than encouraging people to socialize with friends, it encouraged them to cull unwanted connections from their friends list. The catch: the application informed users' friends they had been "sacrificed" for a shot at a burger coupon. Facebook, however, wasn't happy. It informed BK the application could not go against user expectations because Facebook explicitly says it will not inform users about friend removal.
It's a common problem for anyone who joined Facebook some time ago. You look at your friend list and wonder who these people are. Burger King wants to help consumers do something about it. The fast-food chain has released the Whopper Sacrifice application on Facebook. The app rewards people with a coupon for BK's signature burger when they cull 10 friends.
After two years of having Apple define the Windows user in the form of John Hodgman's bumbling "PC" in the "Get a Mac" ads, Microsoft enlisted, for the first time, agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, whose counterpunch -- a series of spots featuring company founder Bill Gates and comedian Jerry Seinfeld -- would be among the most anticipated ad campaigns in recent memory.
Burger King has debuted a cologne that smells like flame-broiled meat, and I can't decide if it’s a stroke of utter branding brilliance, outright madness, or a little of both.
What do Burger King underwear, Kellogg's hip-hop street wear and Allstate Green insurance have in common? They all were voted among the worst brand extensions of 2008.
Burger King's "Whopper Virgins" are going viral, just as the fast feeder intended. But while the cheeky camapign has yet to take off, early numbers and engagement with the videos is promising, according to an online tracking group.
Next week, Burger King kicks off a major ad campaign that involves a unique twist on the tried-and-true marketing technique of taste testing, and it already is already generating controversy.
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