The world of advertising and branding is always an exciting and turbulent one. Recently the Mi9 team (and probably the rest of the marketing fraternity) have been abuzz with the Burger King advertising. Love it or hate it, it has certainly become a topical one. To give us his weird and wonderful thoughts on this advertising campaign, we have Bruce Gourley from Stanley St who has shared his interesting take on this whole campaign.
The Great Mouldy Burger Debate – by Bruce Gourley (Strategy Director Stanley St)
If you’re in the marketing or advertising game you’re probably aware of one of the most talked about campaigns recently. Burger King’s Mouldy Burger ad. Its premise is a shot across the bows of McDonald’s – infamous as a product so artificial it literally doesn’t decompose. So, to show how ‘natural’ their ingredients are Burger King’s ad showcases the decomposition of their famous Whopper over 34 days.
One would imagine this is a pretty simple story, well-told. So why the controversy?
Firstly, I think we’ve overstated the controversy. It’s really more of a storm within a very small marketing industry teacup. But it has highlighted differing opinions around good vs bad marketing.
Some ‘experts’ opine that this is great marketing. Breakthrough, relevant and brave. I would agree that it is all of these things but like some others out there I’m not sure that makes it great or even if it makes it work. Truth be told we will only know if this works when sales data is revealed after a period of time and even then that data could have been influenced by any myriad of external factors.
Here is my thinking
- I don’t know who the intended audience is. Burger King, like other QSR brands, has brand loyalists and I’m wondering whether this ad did more to annoy existing loyalists who have now been exposed to their favourite food rotting than it did to bring new consumers into the fold.
- I feel like this was an ad designed to win awards. The industry will love it. The awards panels will love it. I don’t think it will do much for sales and if so then we’re left with what it did for brand perception.
- If you look at brand perception as a long-term play the it isn’t really about smart stories but more a slow accumulation of positive ‘lizard-brain’ or ‘System-1’ associations. To me then, this ad fails. I worry that the long-term outtake will inevitably be an negative emotional reaction to the product being visualised as rotting.
So, in short, great for a story today – bad for the brand tomorrow.
But then who really cares when even this smart piece of advertising can get usurped so quickly by another brand.
Take a look at Nando’s South Africa’s response below:
