Burger King has attempted a number of successful and unsuccessful advertisements. Burger King was the first in the fast food industry to use competitive ads. The theme of this advertisement was that Burger Kings burgers were larger and better tasting than their main competitor, McDonalds. In response, McDonalds sued Burger King in 1980 and they had not compromised a settlement until 2001.
Burger King was also the first of the fast food chains to use promotional advertisement. This form of advertising started in 1977 when they partnered up with the producers of Star Wars. Burger King sold a set of glasses featuring the main characters from the movie. They were quickly overshadowed in 1983 when McDonalds partnered with Walt Disney Inc. In 1994, McDonald’s contract with Walt Disney Inc. had ended. Since this promotional campaign was a success with the younger generation, Burger King took over and started promoting animated Disney movies. Burger King had also partnered with Pokémon, when Pokémon was the top hit kid TV show in 1999. After reelecting the CEO in 2002, Burger King hired a new advertising agency called Crispin Porter + Bugosky (CP+B). Their goal was to revive the old Burger King Characters used in 1970’s/1980’s. They put the character “the King” in unusual situations; making the ad funny usually followed by the phrase “Where is your God now?” They also created new characters that went viral on relevant social media sites such as MySpace.
While I was searching for information on Burger King’s advertising strategies, I came over an interesting article from Digiday. The article was about Burger Kings twitter account. On February 18th 2013, Burger King’s twitter account had been hacked. The hacker, who called himself “IThug”, used the account to promote McDonalds buying out Burger King, which is Burger King’s biggest competitor. This incident is a good example of a brand’s worst nightmare. When looking at the positive side, they got over 15,000 new followers, but it still hurt the reputation for the brand. Twitter had terminated Burger King’s account and created a new account for them to manage.
Why do you think attack ads stopped being used? It seems to me today after seeing commercials for each of these fast food restaurants that within their commercial they are advertising their burgers and food as the best, isn't that still a form of an attack ad?
ReplyDeleteI would not call it attack advertising. This has a negative connotation and it is rather referred to in politics. The correct term would be competitve advertising which is used quite frequently.
ReplyDeleteI think they stopped using attack ads it because it made more harm than good. They wanted to focus on the positive side of their brand rather than negative side on the competitors. It is not a form of an attack ad or competitive ad because they are not talking directly bad about each other.
ReplyDeleteI have now changed it from attack advertising to competitive in the post so I use the correct term.
The mac and cheese is advertised as homemade and it tastes just that. Food Truck Catering
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I always love Burger King Burger. Because it's traditional, popular, tasty and delicious.
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