Dec 7 2008

The Burger King “Whopper Virgins” commercials (sigh)

I’m deluged with messages about Burger King’s “Whopper Virgin” commercials and requests to comment on them.  What could Burger King’s PR people be thinking?  Probably that if they produced something outrageous, everyone would write about it, as I am now doing.  Burger King spent a fortune to go to the ends of the earth and ask people who supposedly had never eaten a hamburger before whether they preferred a Whopper to some other unnamed hamburger.  The results are to be announced tomorrow (Monday).  Want to hazard a guess as to how this brilliant study will come out?

It’s hard to know what’s worse: the poor quality of the sponsored science, the offensiveness of the “Whopper Virgin” concept, or the condescension to the people living in those remote areas.   As they say in PR, ink is ink.

December 9 Update:  Guess which one won.

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That’s ridiculous! I live right in downtown Toronto. Grew up here too and I have never had either a Whopper or a Big Mac. As I child I was convinced they caused chicken pox as I have never had either. So the BK peeps didn’t need all those wasted fossil fuels, SUVs, helicopters, planes…. Though- I am not sure any incentive would have been enough to get me to eat that.

Crispin Porter is the ad agency behind Burger King. They are the same minds that put a sexy German woman in the passenger seat of a Volkswagen and resurrected Orville Redenbacher from the dead to sell more popcorn. They definitely rely on offending to create buzz.

The “documentary” at BK’s website makes the case that this is really a sociological experiment, but the acompanying taste-test videos makes it looks like nothing more than well-funded mockery.

  • Sheila
  • December 8, 2008
  • 9:26 pm

Ink is ink, and manure is still, well…, manure.
Boy, what I would give for one of these companies to come up with a fast food product that tastes great AND is good for you. That would be so fantastic it would practically sell itself, and they could save millions on paying these advertising geniuses.

[...] -Marion Nestle [...]

  • Shana
  • December 10, 2008
  • 3:17 pm

There is a good article about the ads in the Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/12/09/burger_kings_greasy_campaign/

Now, what about BK’s new Whopper fragrance for men? Again, kudos to their advertising for getting people talking. But it sickens me that people would go so far as aligning their personal scent with a cheap meat product!

[...] noise, and not the kind you get by licking your finger and rubbing it on the computer screen). Marion Nestle reluctantly wrote about the commercial on December 7, with an update on December 9. PunkAss Blog was a little more forthright in their response, as was [...]

[...] the country’s health care cost problem, but most economists agree it’s necessary to arm people with step by step price lists and quality reviews from hospitals, doctors and other health care [...]

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