Episode 124 - Burger King All About The Whopper Ad Reviewed By The Digital Voice, Unilever and Logitech
Most of us would struggle to name another Burger King product other than the Whopper, according to this week’s ad on Advertisers Watching Ads.
The campaign chosen by Contagious shows how little the public knows about their other sandwiches. Instead of allowing this to get them down, BK have chosen to celebrate the Whopper name and fame.
But, does this ad serve a goal? What does it achieve for brand recall? And was it really needed?
Tune in to the first episode of 2023 to hear from our guests Kasey Long (PR and Client Services Director at The Digital Voice), Seb Bardin (Head of Ecommerce Marketing at Unilever), Johann Evanno (Global Marketing Director at Logitech) and see why they only rated this ad 2.67 from 5!
Episode 124 - Burger King All About The Whopper Ad Reviewed By The Digital Voice, Unilever and Logitech
Transcript is automatically generated, so not perfect, but you get the idea!
Tom Ollerton 0:00
Hello, and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. This is a weekly show where brands watch other brands' ads.
Tom Ollerton 0:33
My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative and we are brought to you as ever by our lovely partners, Contagious, who have sourced the ad this week. But before we get to that ad, let's meet this week's guests.
Kasey Long 0:44
My name is Kasey and I am the PR and Client Services Director for The Digital Voice.
Seb Bardin 0:49
Hi, I'm Seb Bardin, and I'm looking after e-commerce marketing at Unilever.
Johann Evanno 0:53
So I'm Johann. I'm the Global Marketing Director at Logitech.
Tom Ollerton 0:57
So question for you... How many burgers can you name made by Burger King other than the Whopper?
Tom Ollerton 2:33
So, on a scale of one to five, how many fingers would you give it? So one, two, three... A three, a three, a three, and a two. What is going on? Johann, why are they doing this? What's the point?
Johann Evanno 2:47
I can already imagine the consumer insights team going, "Shit. No one has a clue about our portfolio, outside the Whopper." And they gave it to a smart agency and you know turned it into something that I think has a very cool disruptive tone of voice that I think did or does quite a bit for the brand. But at least for the Whopper, you know what they're already well known for, that was I guess a good way to get people to talk about it. Again.
Seb Bardin 3:12
Yeah, this is what's missing for me, it's... You know, the "so what?" So it looks like you're taking new piece of insights, putting it on media and then, You know, is your goal to increase our awareness of our view of our, our view of your sandwiches? Or is it just, you know, about highlighting Whopper, so you know, I'm still a bit confused. You don't really see the product. So it's, you know... Some of the bits of comms, it was just the tick around the Whopper. So... Yeah, I would like to know what, how... You know, they calculated the sales incremental by a, I think 115% after this campaign.
Johann Evanno 3:43
I have a point in this one, I find it very intriguing. The small lines below is that you know, 117% increase, and then you go, "In Mexico, after one month, out of many other activities that were going on." So it does look like a pretty difficult thing to evaluate fairly. By the way, I think that the creative idea coming out of a pretty disastrous survey, I think is a good transformation. Now did it do really well for the business? Not so sure.
Seb Bardin 4:17
For me, it showed an opportunity, "Okay, we are weak, you know... The brand awareness of the different sandwiches that we have is pretty low. How can we increase this?"
Kasey Long 4:28
I think they're cutting off their nose to spite their face. They're doing the best they can with the results that they got. There's no argument the brand recall of the Whopper is totally synonymous with Burger King as a brand, but I'm desperate for that chicken sandwich that I have no idea what the name is or how to order it when I go to Burger King next time. So I feel like it was a bit of a missed opportunity in that aspect that they're putting it all on the Whopper.
Johann Evanno 4:54
I find it, marketing-wise, I find it quite good because they managed to, again turn a pretty bad, you know, survey results into a campaign that is seen as being disruptive, as being humorous, as being you know, the brand doesn't take itself too seriously. So I think all these attributes are probably good in the fast food environment. So to your point, Tom, you know, the campaign normally doesn't, didn't cost that much. And they still managed to get some PR out of it. So I think as a brand exercise, that's probably a good thing to, but, you know, to reinforce the Whooper, that's alright, you know, because that's still probably the bulk of their business. From a business point of view, that's what I think all of us picked up, yeah, picked up on is, you know, not sure you solved your problem, but at least as a pure branding exercise, that probably gave you some extra visibility on something people knew already, but maybe didn't have like top of mind. As in, you know, they were not thinking about, you know, eating Whopper when they were crossing the street and saw these ads, so probably that brought back some top of mind awareness.
Kasey Long 6:04
Transparency is not something that you get out of a lot of fast food chains, or at least maybe that consumers might not feel like they get. So that added layer was definitely a nice perk of this campaign for them.
Seb Bardin 6:15
And also something probably had you know, I didn't, we didn't see a spot of this video, it's also in terms of execution. So usually, all the fast food will be really focusing on let's say, food porn, one type of imagery. This is our burger, how it looks like in terms of execution. You know, all the format we've seen. This is completely different from what you would be expecting from Burger King, from you know, from McDonald's, so it's also a little bit, completely different and also quite engaged in you as a, you know, as a commuter, as a user, or to learn more, to read, you know, "Okay, what this is all about?"
Tom Ollerton 6:46
What if there's an execution which, where they, if you did guess, you got it, you got a free meal, or whatever, you know, like, it's, the... They're playing with that tension of not knowing is, I don't think has been really...
Kasey Long 6:56
They could name it themselves. There looked like there was some funny names or ideas that people did write down just guessing or being stupid. You could have plucked one of them out and said, "Congrats, you're a lucky winner. And you just named our new sandwich." And then rebrand it or something fun.
Johann Evanno 7:03
Yeah, and you know Kasey, I was thinking the same thing when I saw all the papers with the random names, I was like, "You know, how cool would that be to say in now, now you can name your, our burgers." And you know, it's like, you know, getting people to engage, but they have something to win in it.
Kasey Long 7:29
Yeah.
Johann Evanno 7:30
I, in this case, it feels as you said, Tom, more like as a PR stunt, but, okay, so as a consumer, even more than as a marketer, what do you want me to do with that?
Seb Bardin 7:45
You will have experience online as well, yeah. Because to your point is, this is where you can extend this and procure code if you're, for website, okay, what do you think? Oh, would you be right? So really challenging the consumers, the viewers of these ads to, you know, to, you know, to bring the, the personal point of view and, you know, link it to promotional activity as well.
Johann Evanno 8:05
It doesn't necessarily have to be like a super bullet proof survey. But just to make the point of, "Okay, people don't know, outside of the Whopper, what are we going to do with that?" And these people, maybe one way of doing it would be, "If people can't remember the names we have picked, why don't you pick them so that maybe we'll have a better chance?" So you have some kind of next wave of, of communication.
Seb Bardin 8:31
There was also more opportunities around, you know, making some of the names very localized. So especially, you know, if you're, in other countries where you know, let's say language-wise, you know, it's difficult to pronounce the name. So, so definitely, you could have made something more local as part of this campaign.
Tom Ollerton 8:46
Yeah, you can take it one step further and go we will give you a year's supply of Burger King if you can name three Burger King products and then to your point, really, really ramp up the tension. Because at the moment like... I don't know. Anyway, right... We're at the end of the, the episode. So would you sign off this campaign in its current guise? Yes or no?
Kasey Long 9:09
Three thumbs down.
Tom Ollerton 9:10
Okay. Well, there you have it Burger King! Some interesting feedback for you. We'll see you all next week.
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