Thought this was cool

I was Googling “burger king marketing” earlier tonight (a few minutes ago really) and found a thread on an Amazon.com forum about how “tasteless” BK marketing is these days. I thought it was a really interesting take on what I think to be pure genius. Since I rant about this kind of stuff to anyone who will listen, I think it’s important for me to take into account that the following quote might be right on the money.

I can’t help but notice that most commercials (not just BK) are getting weird. Especially for the fast food places that have no nutritionally sound products to advertise. They are hoping, I’m sure, to capture the 20-something internet-savvy viral video-watching group that makes up their most likely consumer base. Personally, I am glad they quit marketing to kids, who have no business eating that junk food to begin with.

I pretty much completely fit that target audience. This really doesn’t hurt my argument though, it’s kind of exactly what I said already. BK (and other fast food restaurants) are advertising their junk food to a new audience instead of the older crowds who are harder to reach, have already formed opinions about particular restaurants and are, excuse me for saying it, dying off.

Anyway, I just want to make a quick post to point this stuff out. I think it’s good to acknowledge and assess different point of views on stuff like this.

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Burger King?

I think Burger King does really cool stuff when it comes to marketing. I’m no expert by any means, but some of the stuff is really fricken cool. Burger King ads have a very ‘advertising 2.0′ feel about them, while McDonalds still look like they’re pulling ads from the 90’s. It’s actually a depressing contrast for me.

In all fairness to McD’s I think they’re just trying to play it safe. They’re relying on a trusted brand and identity and it’s worked so far, the risk of constantly reinventing their image (kind of what BK has done) is just not worth it. This will work for some time but I think it will start to burn out once the older generations are hospitalized with clogged arteries and heart disease, and the restaurant has to start appealing to younger audiences.

Whenever I find out BK is doing something new to advertise their business, I get pretty excited. It’s always something cool. Most recently they began dropping wallets around cities with directions to the closest BK location with free coupons/gift cards. People came out of the wood work to say McD’s did this too some time back, but who cares? I don’t remember that…so it obviously didn’t have much of an impact.

The same advertising firm that is responsible for the BK “King” ads and a lot of the more recent ones are the same people responsible for the new “I’m a PC” ads from Microsoft. The image above is a lot like the PC ads actually. I just want to lay out incredible things BK has offered all of us, whether or not they seem like direct, conventional marketing or not:

• The Frypod (the new fry containers that fit in the cup holder)
• The King ad campaign (included video games, television spots, print ads, etc. etc. etc.)
• Dropping wallets in crowded cities to create viral effect
• BK agreeing to favor and prefer meat suppliers who don’t confine their animals to cages/crates
• Offering veggie burgers well before McD’s
• Offering wider variety of foods

That’s a really, really short list. I could definitely make an entire post that’s just full of bullets.

Anyway, BK has the upper hand by actually sticking in peoples’ brains while McD’s has really fallen behind. You could probably go so far as to split their marketing into two entirely different class segments. McD’s tends to market more to inner city people in the past decade while BK has focused on surbanites.

It’s really as simple as comparing their slogans and ads, just look! McD’s tried desperately and painfully to be relevant to African-Americans with their last major ad campaign, the whole “I’m lovin’ it” thing. From what I’ve read, and I have no source to back this up other than my own memory, but it worked to some extent. My gut tells me it left a lot of people (including their target audience) with a really stale taste and perception of the McD’s image. This doesn’t mean they’ll stop eating their burgers though.

P.S. I had to update this post to include the most recent thing I’ve seen on TV from BK. They’re taking three different kinds of “Whopper virgins” from around the world and getting them to compare the Big Mac to the Whopper to see which one they like best. Here’s a link to find out more. Pretty genius.

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