Burger King - Advertising

Advertising

Since its foundation in 1954, Burger King has employed varied advertising programs, both successful and unsuccessful. During the 1970s, output included its Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce... jingle, the inspiration for its current mascot the Burger King, and several well known and parodied slogans such as "Have it your way" and "It takes two hands to handle a Whopper". Burger King introduced the first attack ad in the fast food industry with a pre-teen Sarah Michelle Gellar in 1981. The television spot, which claimed BK burgers were larger and better tasting than competitor McDonald's, so enraged executives at McDonald's parent company that they sued all parties involved. Starting in the early 1980s and running through approximately 2001, BK engaged a series of ad agencies that produced many unsuccessful slogans and programs, including its biggest advertising flop "Where's Herb?".

Burger King was a pioneer in the advertising practice known as "product tie-in", with a successful partnership with George Lucas' Lucasfilm, Ltd., to promote the 1977 film Star Wars in which BK sold a set of glasses featuring the main characters from the movie. This promotion was one of the first in the fast food industry and set the pattern that continues to the present. BK's early success in the field was overshadowed by a 1982 deal between McDonald's and the Walt Disney Company to promote Disney's animated films beginning in the mid 1980s and running through the early 1990s. In 1994, Disney switched from McDonald's to Burger King, signing a 10-movie promotional contract which would include such top 10 films as Aladdin (1992), Beauty and the Beast (1991), The Lion King (1994), and Toy Story (1995). A partnership in association with the Pokémon franchise at the height of its popularity in 1999 was tremendously successful for the company, with many locations rapidly selling out of the toys and the replacements.

Shortly after the acquisition of Burger King by TPG Capital, L.P. in 2002, its new CEO Brad Blum set about turning around the fortunes of the company by initiating an overhaul of its flailing advertising programs. One of the first moves by the company was to reinstate its famous "Have it your way" slogan as the corporate motto. BK handed the effort off to its new advertising agency, Miami-based Crispin Porter + Bogusky (abbreviated as CP+B). CP+B was known for having a hip, subversive tack when creating campaigns for its clients, exactly what BK was looking for. One of CP+B strategies was to revive the Burger King character used during BK's 1970s/1980s Burger King Kingdom children's advertising campaign as a caricatured variation, now simply called "the King". The farcical nature of "the Burger King" centered advertisements inspired an internet meme where the King is edited into unusual situations that are either comical or menacing, many times followed with the phrase "Where is your God now?"

Additionally, CP+B created a series of new characters like the Subservient Chicken and the faux nu metal band Coq Roq, featured in a series of viral web-based advertisements on sites such as MySpace and various BK corporate pages, to compliment various television and print promotional campaigns. One of the more successful promotions that CP+B devised was the creation of a series of three advergames for the Xbox 360. Created by UK based Blitz Games and featuring company celebrity spokesman Brooke Burke, the games sold more than 3.2 million copies, placing them as one of the top selling games along with another Xbox 360 hit, Gears of War. These ad campaigns, coupled with other new promotions and a series of new product introductions, drew positive and negative attention to BK, and helped TPG and its partners realize about $367 million (USD) in dividends.

With the late-2000s recession hitting the 18–35 demographic targeted by the CP+B created ads particularly hard, the company saw its market share decline and the company move into the red. After the completion of the sale of the company in late 2010, the new ownership group terminated Burger King's seven-year relationship with CP+B and hired rival firm McGarryBowen to create a new campaign with an expanded market reach. As part of the new campaign, McGarryBowen terminated the use of the The Burger King in the company's advertising program in favor of a new program that focused on the food and ingredients in its new advertising campaigns.