Tag: Burger King

What Can ‘The Burger King’ Mascot Teach Marketers?

What Can ‘The Burger King’ Mascot Teach Marketers?

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The King Collage

Recently, I read the Adweek article titled, Burger King’s Week of Being Misunderstood Just Ended With Advertising’s Best Reunion in Years. In addition to providing an overview of the Burger King’s commercial, All By Myself, the write-up showcases a glimpse of the history behind the fast food chain’s viral marketing mascot, Subservient Chicken. As history appeared interesting, I jumped on to read more pieces on the character. In the process of reading, I was enticed to know about Burger King’s primary mascot, The King. Apart from being interesting, its evolution and longevity suggested ways in which a brand can incorporate its mascot in the marketing strategy.

Here are my top lessons from the history of The Burger King mascot.

Incorporate mascot in the Fusion Marketing approach:

Like most of the big guys, Burger King has as well cooperated with brands, having the same kind of prospects and standards, in joint marketing efforts. In a handful of such fusions, the quick service restaurant has brought in its most popular mascot, The King.

The mascot appeared in the Burger King’s campaign for the film, Superman Returns in summer 2006.

In July 2007, The King featured in the commercials meant to promote the animated comedy film, The Simpsons Movie. Wherein, the character appeared with the show’s typical traits of four fingers, yellow skin, and an overbite.

Burger King - The Simpsons Movie
The Burger King in a commercial for The Simpsons Movie

Later, the mascot appeared in the tie-in promotion of the film, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith and advertisements for a cross-promotion with the National Football League (NFL) and Direct TV’s NFL Sunday Ticket sports subscription package.

In summer 2018, the US brigades of Burger King and Budweiser entered into a partnership, which yielded a limited-edition burger, American Brewhouse King Sandwich and revived the American beer maker’s iconic campaign, Whassup. To top it all, The King, holding a set of the new burger in his hand, “spoke” in the spot. The advertisement supported the revitalized campaign.

By doing Fusion Marketing, the associated brands are expanding their reach but reducing their cost of marketing because they are sharing it with others. When such an approach incorporates a brand’s most popular mascot in a unique and engaging manner, the resultant campaign gets more appealing and its outreach gets more effective.

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Integrate mascot into different forms of content offerings:

Apart from using the mascot in numerous commercials, the fast food restaurant has leveraged the persona by…

  • Featuring an animated version of The King at the beginning of each episode of Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, a cartoon series created by Seth MacFarlane and released on YouTube

By integrating the mascot into different forms of content offerings as mentioned above, the brands are leveraging different channels to take their mascots to the audience. In the process of this integration, there is a likeliness for the existing audience to get entertained in a fresh manner, and for a new fan base to get roped in.

Make the mascot spearhead topical moments:

For Good Samaritan Day in 2018, Burger King treated everyone with a good-natured film. In the video, you see a car fire on the side of a highway. Alongside the car is a guy who appears to look up to travelers vrooming past him to lend him a hand. People who pull over to assist the guy are in for a surprise when The King, flame grilling Whopper, welcomes them. What appeared as an engine fire are actually the flames from the grill. The fast-food restaurant presented Burgers and iconic Burger King Crowns to the Samaritans. Watch the video of the one best Burger King marketing campaigns of 2018, by clicking here!

Here, I would like to recall a moment from Tamil Nadu, India. The below bespectacled and laughing character has been the mascot of the 93-year old Vikatan Group…

Vikatan Logo

For decades, the old man has been symbolic of most of the publications and businesses of the group.

On 7th August 2018, when Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi, an Indian writer, and politician who served as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, India for almost two decades, passed away, the Vikatan group customized its mascot as below…

Vikatan Sad Logo

Topical moments spearhead by mascots, as mentioned above, offer the audience with occasions that deserve everlasting remembrance.

Customize mascot to appeal to children:

Burger King has customized its mascot to appeal to children in various stages of its history.

In the late 1960s, Burger King introduced a small and animated king character called Kurger Bing in its children’s advertising, voiced by the American voice actor, Allen Swift.

Kurger Bing
Kurger Bing

In all advertisements, the character presented small gifts to children or bought them some Burger King Food. In many of the ads that featured the king, he recited the brand’s slogan, ‘Burger King, where kids are king!’

Later, in 1976, the Marvelous Magical Burger King, who ruled Burger King Kingdom (a fantasy world associated with Burger King) and performed magic tricks, replaced Kurger Bing.

The Marvelous Magical Burger King
Marvelous Magical Burger King

The King appeared in the Burger King Kingdom commercials from 1976 to 1989. In favor of the Burger King Kids Club Gang commercials, the quick service restaurant discontinued its Burger King Kingdom ad campaigns in 1989.

An updated version of Kurger Bing later appeared in the Burger King Kids Club Gang advertisements during the mid-2000s.

Another case in point is on how the paint company, Nippon Paint India promoted its KIDZ Paint product by involving kids. In 2018, Nippon Paint India used its mascot, Blobby to promote its child wellness product, KIDZ Paint aimed at children in the 0-12 age group. Furthermore with each KIDZ Paint product came a free Blobby hand puppet.

The above examples perfectly illustrate that mascots could come in handy in marketing, especially when brands have the relevance of tapping the attention of kids.

And, here ends my article that maps the high points in the history of The King with marketing. Hope you enjoyed reading the write-up! Now, let me know the marketing lessons, which you have inferred from brand mascots, in the comments!

4 Examples of Captivating Fusion Marketing Campaigns (And Why They’re So Great)

4 Examples of Captivating Fusion Marketing Campaigns (And Why They’re So Great)

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Main Pic 3

Recently, I have been reading the late American Business Writer Jay Conrad Levinson’s book, Guerrilla Marketing: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for making big profits from your small business. In a chapter of the book, the author has listed down twenty ways in which guerrilla marketing differs from the old-fashioned brand of marketing. In one of the ways, the writer defines traditional marketing as an approach, which suggests a brand to observe its industrial market completely to decide which of its competitors are to be utterly defeated by it.

Conversely, he proclaims guerrilla marketing as an outlook, which advocates a brand to discover businesses that possess the same kind of potential customers/clients and standards as it does, so that the brand can collaborate with the selected businesses in their marketing endeavours.

By opting the latter, Jay Conrad Levinson asserts that a brand is expanding its marketing reach, but reducing its marketing cost as it is sharing the expenses with the fellow business. And, he puts forth the term Fusion Marketing, which guerrillas use for this viewpoint.

There are tons of great examples for Fusion Marketing out there. To show you what makes them so captivating, I have curated a list of 4 examples of interesting Fusion Marketing instances. Here we go!

1. Burger King and Budweiser

Targeting the 2018 summer, the American brands, Burger King (BK) and Budweiser partnered and launched a limited edition burger named American Brewhouse King Sandwich and a special crown referred as Freedom Crown, for fans of both brands, to celebrate the Independence Day of United States of America. The crown, which holds both an American Brewhouse King Sandwich and a Budweiser beer, was available for people aged 21 or older, for a limited time. In the process, the collaboration revived the American beer maker’s iconic campaign, Whassup. In which, the original Budweiser Whassup commercial was remade by seasoning it with a special cameo from The King himself. To top it all, the BK’s mascot, holding a set of the new burger in his hand, “spoke” for the first time, in the spot. The ad was meant for supporting the revitalized campaign, driven by the agencies MullenLowe and David.

Whassup 2018 is one among the campaigns of BK that epitomizes the fast food restaurant’s Global CMO, Fernando Machado’s regular catchphrase, Burger King team is fighting the good fight for creativity!

Watch the ad below!

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2. Uber and Mission Impossible 6: Fallout

When Tom Cruise is committed in doing all his high-risk stunts in the sixth Mission Impossible instalment, Fallout then how are the trained stunt men, hired by Paramount Pictures, occupying themselves?

You get to hear a light-hearted answer encapsulated in a video created by Uber, to promote its sponsorship of the red carpet premiere of Mission Impossible – Fallout that took place on July 12th 2018 in Paris.

In the documentary-style interview video, a fictional stunt man named Adrian Cooper talks about the ways in which he uses his plentiful downtime on the shooting spots.

One best way, in which he spends time, is to drive for Uber. Apart from enthusiastically letting his customers know about Tom’s daredevil stunts in Fallout, he conveys them on him being eager to watch the live streaming of the movie’s world premiere in Uber’s YouTube channel. The video ends with him saying, “I can’t wait to see all the stunts I didn’t do”!

Watch the hilarious video by clicking the link in the below tweet!

3. The Lego Movie and Turkish Airlines

Ahead of the upcoming release of The Lego Movie 2, Turkish Airlines partnered with The Lego Movie franchise and created an in-flight safety video, comprising the stars of The Lego Movie, driven predominantly by characters like Emmett and Wyldstyle. In the infotainment video, the cast takes passengers through the safety procedures, which are usually explained by the crew members before the flight takes off. It’s a fun way to kick-start the flight journey with a video, which brings together two brands that are well-known across the globe.

As per The Drum, 16 production specialists have toiled for 950 days to turn 2,938,840 Lego bricks into this edutainment video.

Also, the video kicks off a drive, which will encompass a global TV campaign, themed wrapped airlines, in-flight and in-airport activations and a second safety video.

Click the link in the below tweet to enjoy the Turkish Airlines Safety Video with The LEGO Movie Characters!

https://twitter.com/TurkishAirlines/status/1040989118782693377

4. Aquaman and Ocean Conservancy

Going by Jason Momoa’s comments to Comicbook.com, the threat posed by pollution in the oceans seem to factor into the Aquaman’s portrayal of the conflict between the surface and Atlantis. This major plot point of Aquaman makes sense of its pairing with the non-profit environmental advocacy group Ocean Conservancy for the organization’s 33rd annual International Coastal Cleanup event, conducted on September 15th 2018.

As a lead-up to the event, people were encouraged through the Aquaman’s social media to be an Ocean Hero by joining it, downloading the organization’s app, Clean Swell and subsequently, participating in a Cleanup event near them. Post cleanup, volunteers were asked to submit data related to the marine debris collected by them in the app. Volunteers using Cleanup data cards were provided with an option to enter the details into Ocean Conservancy’s database. Eventually, the data will be formulated to Ocean Trash Index, which will then be an information source for everyone on the impact of the ocean trashes.

Please find below the peek into the International Coastal Cleaup, which happened on September 15th 2018.

Conclusion:

In the aforementioned fusion marketing campaigns, it is evident that the brands have adopted the guerrilla marketing outlook by discovering businesses that possess the same kind of potential customers/clients and standards as they do and collaborated with the selected businesses in their marketing endeavours. These approaches would have helped the brands to get more bang for their bucks, with less work.

These are the 10 Best Burger King Marketing Campaigns of 2018

These are the 10 Best Burger King Marketing Campaigns of 2018

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To our June baby! (1)
These are the 10 Best Burger King Marketing Campaigns of 2018 (So far)

The marketing campaigns of Burger King have always been a delight. Hence, it is business as usual so far in the year 2018 for the fast food restaurant’s marketing and communications wing. Plentiful campaigns, which are buzzworthy, are being rendered from its various locations across the globe.

The social media presence of the Burger King’s Global Chief Marketing Officer, Fer Machado, and the mentions, pertaining to the campaigns, in popular online media like Adweek and The Drum prompted me to list down BK’s 10 best marketing campaigns of 2018 so far. So, in this article, I present my list in no particular order.

1. A wrap to transmogrify a bus into a fire truck:

Agency: &Partner

&Partner, an advertising agency from Copenhagen, wrapped the right side of a bus to transmogrify the transit vehicle into a Burger King-branded fire truck. The meaty idea, inspired by the iconic fire trucks in New York, is the agency’s entry in an outdoor advertising competition in Denmark. In the contest, each participating agency was asked to select its client and come up with an idea to advertise the chosen brand with a bus. The concept bolstered the focus of the fast-food chain on flame grilling.

2. Free WhoppHER for every Saudi woman behind the wheel:

Agency: Grabarz & Partners

To celebrate women driving in Saudi Arabia, post the lifting of the decade-old controversial ban on the same, Burger King offered free Whopper sandwich to every woman passing through its drive-thru restaurants in the country. The quick service restaurant chain set the ball rolling for the campaign from June 24th through July 24th.

Click here to watch the campaign video!

3. A parabolic solar cooker to sear a burger:

Agency: Memac Ogilvy

Burger King’s Kuwait operation and Memac Ogilvy together devised and executed an idea to cook up Whopper using the heat produced by parabolic solar cookers, which mobilize direct sun rays to generate the heat. In Kuwait, when the temperature reaches 122 Fahrenheit, BK prepares this Sun-Flamed Grilled Whopper. This offering is available only at select locations in Kuwait (provided when the temperature favors).

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4. A Good Samaritan Day video presenting a good-natured stunt:

Agency: David the Agency

For this year’s Good Samaritan Day, Burger King treated everyone with a good-natured film. In the video, you see a car fire on the side of a highway. Alongside the car is a guy who appears to look up to travelers vrooming past him to lend him a hand. People who pull over to assist the guy are in for a surprise when Burger King’s advertising mascot, flame grilling Whopper, welcomes them. What appeared as an engine fire are actually the flames from the grill. The Samaritans are then offered Burgers and iconic Burger King Crowns.

Also Read: What Can ‘The Burger King’ Mascot Teach Marketers?

5. Whopper Neutrality stunt to explain the potential effects of Net Neutrality:

Agency: David

Burger King got behind the topic, Net Neutrality to explain it to not just a handful of its store customers but in fact to possibly every internet user with one of its brilliant in-store stunts. At one of BK’s outlet, if customers were to get served their Whoppers quick then they had to pay the QSR more than the actual price of the food offering. What if they don’t? The answer is simple. Even if the Whopper is ready, the customers had to wait pointlessly for a certain amount of time to collect it.

The expansion which the Burger King had displayed for MBPS over the pricing board (i.e., from “megabits per second” to “making burgers per second”), to be showcased to the customers, was also innovative. Hidden cameras placed in the store captured the goings-on inside the store and varied emotions of the customers in focus and rendered an edutainment.

6. An ‘explainer’ video on ‘Pink Tax’:

Agency: DAVID the Agency (Miami)

This is yet another instance of the fast food chain getting behind a topic concerning the public. The topic in this campaign is ‘Pink Tax’, a price, which refers to the products made for women like razors, shampoo, and conditioner, that is significantly higher than the cost of the male equivalents of those products. In a film released by Burger King, one can see female customers charged $3.09 for “Chick Fries”. Whereas, “Chicken Fries” being charged at $1.69. Wherein, the only difference between the two food items is the box in which they are served i.e. “Chicken Fries” in a yellow box and “Chick Fires” in a pink box. Like Whopper Neutrality, the goal of this campaign as well is to render infotainment around the focal topic and to convey the stand of Burger King on the same.

Watch the ‘Chick Tax’ spot by clicking here!

7. Gift Whoppers or Oreo shake to ease co-workers stuck at the office in summer:

Agency: Buzzman

Burger King Belgium and the agency Buzzman collaborated and yielded the summer special digital campaign, ‘Whopper Out of Office’ that kick-started on July 3rd. In which, the fans, enjoying their summer vacation in a remote destination, were given an innovative option to taunt and then pacify their fellow coworkers stuck at the office by treating them with eatables. All they have to do is provide their destination, duration of their journey and a description in the website set up for the campaign. So, when a person contacts them, he/she will receive an automatically generated email along with a gift voucher for a Whopper or an Oreo shake and their individually tailored message for him/her.

Click here and have a look at the campaign video!

8. Summer pairing of Burger King and Budweiser – A paragon of Collaboration Marketing:

Agency: David and MullenLowe

The pairing of the US brigades of Burger King and Budweiser is what I call as a perfect example of Collaboration Marketing. Targeting the summer season, the partnership, in addition to yielding the limited-edition burger ‘American Brewhouse King Sandwich’, revived the American beer maker’s iconic campaign, ‘Whassup’. To top it all, the BK’s mascot, holding a set of the new burger in his hand, “spoke” in the spot. The ad was meant for supporting the revitalized campaign.

Also Read: 4 Examples of Captivating Fusion Marketing Campaigns (And Why They’re So Great)

9. King Popcorn campaign to hack Whopper into the movies:

Agency: McCann Lima

As soon as the prohibition in the Peruvian Law on taking outside food to the theatres was ceased, movie halls started letting consumers enter their premises with foods ‘similar’ to those sold in the cinema’s concession stands. Burger King Peru and McCann Lima sensed a marketing opportunity, seized the situation and ended up with the King Popcorn campaign. Wherein, the fast feeder, located in food courts close to the movie theatres, packed a popcorn tub with a Whopper at the bottom, a French Fries pack above it and a tray containing a handful of popcorns at the top. The outward appearance of this food item named King Popcorn resembled the snack sold in the theatres. Thereby, it facilitated the hacking of the Whopper and French fries inside the movie. This innovative move by Burger King increased its sales by 40% in the activation period and put the brand in the consumer spotlight.

10. Incendiary print and outdoor ads for a recruitment campaign in Germany:

Agency: Grabarz & Partner Werbeagentur GmbH

For the Burger King Recruitment campaign in Germany, the fast food chain in the country and Grabarz & Partner came up with a series of incendiary, eye-catching print and outdoor ads. The ads depicting real-life events had the text, ‘LOVE FIRE? CONTACT US’ accompanied by the web address, ‘bk-careers.com’, catchphrase, ‘FLAME GRILLING SINCE 1954’ and the Burger King logo.

Conclusion:

Even though I consider the aforementioned campaigns as best of Burger King in 2018 so far, I can’t resist myself in admiring the other efforts of the restaurant like Burger King China’s celebration of International Women’s Day 2018 and Burger King Romania’s “Whopper No Show” campaign. Also, it sounds appealing when coming across tweets from BK’s Global CMO that gives a glimpse of the interiors of the fast feeder’s outlets of different countries. Overall, I find the collective marketing and communications efforts of the QSR chain to be lively!

Having documented a list of best Burger King marketing campaigns of 2018 so far, I now eagerly look forward to what the chain has in store for the remaining months of this year.