Burger King’s Marketing: Fast Food Slime
I hesitated on writing this post because I am helping to fuel the buzz. And yet I can’t resist, because this is such a “perfect” example of slimy marketing. Good marketing is about facilitating and building relationships between a company and its customers. Questionable marketing exploits people. The Chicken Fries marketing campaign by Burger King makes my skin crawl.
CEO Greg Brenneman is trying to recover from BK’s downward sales spiral by appealing to the ”Super Fan,” a young male consumer who dines frequently on fast food. To reach this audience, they have decided to be controversial. And yes, people ARE talking about it. It probably has even helped the company sell more of their Chicken Fries. But, do we have to rely on marketing like this to sell products?
Developed by Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the advertising firm comments on their website:
Right now every smart brand is trying to find ways to make it easy for the customer to personalize their products. Why? Because it empowers the consumer by putting them in control. And they love you for it. We believe Burger King was the originator of this mass customization and we believe it’s time we helped them take back their throne.
How do they help BK take back their throne? Well, through the use of the paid-for, teen-targeted rock band, Coq Roq. This band exists solely to promote a fast food. Coq Roq features scantily-clad groupies, band members wearing chicken masks have names like Fowl Mouth and Free Range, and songs like Bob Your Head and Nice Box.
From the Burger King press release, “Tucked into a highly portable container that fits into a car’s cup-holder, CHICKEN FRIES aren’t your mother’s strips or your baby sister’s nuggets, this is a “box that rocks” and it has VIP seats at every COQ ROQ show.”
Check out a portion of the lyrics from Bang Your Head:
Bob your head
Push out your beak
Bob your head
Shake your lean white meatLift your noble stick
Raise it to the skies
Wave the golden prize
And bob your head
Bob your headNuggets make us sick
We are the turning tide
Get on board and ride
Bob your head, bob your headBob your head
Let the people rise
Bob your head
One kingdom under chicken friesBob your head
Head back and sing
Bob your head
Hail to the King
And from their Coq Roq picture gallery (note: this picture caption received so many complaints, the company has since changed it. The company denies it made the changes because of outside complaints. See Jeff Lipson’s blog for more details. ):
On that note, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. Is this clever marketing? Experimental advertising? Sales techniques that are pushing the cutting edge? Or, is it something we could all do without? Let me know what you think.
Hugs, Wendy Maynard,
your friendly marketing maven
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on August 8th, 2005 at 4:20 pm
Wendy,
Great post. What’s sad is that this campaign might actually work.
Mike
on August 9th, 2005 at 10:44 am
I saw that commercial. Being a young male that eats fast food more frequently than I probably should I can pretty much tell you that it doesn’t work for me. Me and my best friend saw it and we kinda just shook our heads because seeing a corporate entity try and be rebellious is pretty sickening. I still do not eat at BK. I didn’t even realize this was a commercial for those stupid chicken fries things (which don’t sound good) because I was so jaded by the stupid image they tried to portray.
on August 9th, 2005 at 11:55 am
A couple of other blog entries about this subject:
Marketing Today (July 31 entry)
Decent Marketing (July 29 entry)
Business Week Blog
~Wendy
on August 11th, 2005 at 8:24 am
I think that an “alternative” band that exists solely to sell a product (other than their own music) is likely to be rejected by many young adults Burger King is targeting. When one considers the negative back-lash that often results from an “alternative” band being labeled as a “sell-out” (a term related to a band using their name to make money in a way that has nothing to do with the music they make), I am skeptical that a more rebellious segment of teens would embrace music that looks and feels like punk, but exists only to sell them a product. However, when considering a more complacent demographic of young adults (the same who are motivated to buy beer endorsed by the Swedish Bikini Team), history indicates that BK’s campaign has potential to do quite well.
on August 17th, 2005 at 6:59 am
Wendy, Way to “sock” the coq! B.K. has sunk to a new low in advertising. It needs to clean up its act and its fry grills, as their chicken fries (I’m told) taste like “coop-poop.”
on August 23rd, 2005 at 9:21 am
Lighten up! I think the ad is funny and creative. I’m suprised people are getting all bent out of shape over it in this day and age. Has anyone seen half the stuff they show on these reality shows lately? And as far as the band “selling out”, any press is good press in the music business,as long as they spell your name right. As a matter of fact, I’m going to try and find their website as soon as I finish this.
Thank you,
Ernie B.
on August 23rd, 2005 at 9:38 am
Ernie, Just to clarify: Coq Roq was created for the purpose of selling Chicken Fries. You can go to their website at http://www.coqroq.com
Wendy
on August 23rd, 2005 at 10:14 am
Looks like the band Slipknot and Burger King are in a legal battle:
“It is obvious that the television advertising and website are designed to conjure up the image and persona of a live performance of Slipknot,” the band’s attorney Howard Weitzman wrote in a letter to the company.
Read more at UltimateGuitar.com
In response, Burger King is suing Slipknot. See this article.
And the fun never stops!
Wendy
on September 7th, 2005 at 7:35 pm
I don’t know if I agree that it’s slimy. All I know is that as a web producer, it looks like it was/is a fun project to have worked on and Crispin Porter + Bogusky have tons of fun sites on the web right now. Out of curiosity, how did you find my site? I found yours as you linked to mine…
Jeff
on September 8th, 2005 at 8:37 am
Hi Jeff, I found your blog through a search of similar entries. I thought you did an excellent job of summarizing the frenzy of opinions surrounding the campaign. Thank you, Wendy
on October 4th, 2005 at 7:00 pm
Wendy -
I have to disagree with you. Burger King is trying to compete with McDonalds. If you are calling out a fast food chain’s marketing strategy for exploiting people then I feel you should first concentrate on McDonald’s directing their marketing efforts towards African Americans and infants. In Schocesslor(sp)’s book “Fast Food Nation” he points out that advertising to infants is the easiest and most Future Valued consumers. Burger King does not do this, nor do they direct their marketing efforts to African Americans. They simply have taken on the “stupid bud light laugh at me” type advertisements. The King ends up in an awkard situation but resolves all matters by presenting the other end with a Burger King sandwich.
I do watch television and have yet to see this Chicken Fry commercial. I do think that the idea of a chicken fry is disgusting and I am not a regular at any Fast Food restaurant. You do have a valid point but characterizing their marketing strategy based soley on this single move is an inefficient argument if in the meantime McDonalds continues getting away with their irresonsible social attitudes.
btw - I found your website when I was searching for my halloween costume of the mask that the guy wears on the commercial.
on October 18th, 2005 at 4:53 pm
I got a chance to see this silly commercial this past summer sometime. I was pretty shocked at the fact that advertising had finally come to almost pornographic content to sell their product. I told a few friends about it, but it never aired again. I was hoping I could see it once more with a witness to see if they felt the same way about it.