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Burger King Drops Creepy Mascot In Favor Of Guacamole

In recent years, Burger King’s advertising has exceeded its food in quality. As of now, that will no longer be the case.

According to Eater, as of today Burger King is splitting with ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, and thus leaving behind the creepy King commercials. They are reportedly refocusing their attention on moms.

The creepy King commercials featured their mascot, a man wearing a costume king outfit and a large, smiling mask. The character is creepy in much the same way Ronald McDonald is, which is why Burger King’s treatment of the mascot was actually fairly brilliant. Rather than assuming that a giant man in a mask is exciting and fun for kids, they instead featured ads of the mascot being creepy: “reverse pick-pocketing” (stuffing money into people’s pockets), pole dancing and laying in peoples’ beds talking in a monotone, sinister-sounding voice. See the first two videos below.

Preceeding the creepy King campaign was the Hootie campaign which, whether or not you like to admit it, was thoroughly entertaining. At one point in the third commercial below a sexy farm girl picks cheeseburgers from trees, and at another two lounging cowboys bite into burgers while “french fries grow like weeds” behind them at an unmistakably suggestive angle.

These ads targeted teens and young adults, mostly dudes. The new ads will focus less on french fry boners and more on freshness, which moms (supposedly) prefer.

This weekend the new new agency, McGarryBowen, is unleashing the ad for the new California Whopper which they are touting as healthy because it has guacamole. According to USA Today, the new commercial which will run this weekend “shows only the sights and sounds of the fresh ingredients being washed, sliced and diced. There are no words, just pulsating music.”

They are also reintroducing the Breakfast Croissan’wich which has egg, meat, cheese, meat and cheese, as you can see in the creepy King commercial below. Nothing about it is fresh, and they likely will not be featuring wordless footage of a butcher turning hog belly into bacon.

Sadly, it sounds like the best thing about Burger King—their commercials—is now going to be indistinguishable from all other fast food chains. We’ll see how these changes serve the King.

  1. August 21, 2011 at 1:17 pm, Bob Abooey said:

    Can’t believe we’re discussing hamburger chain mascots, but…

    Sorry, but Ronald McDonald is nowhere nearly as creepy as the Burger King. At least RMD’s facial expression could change! Also, RMD didn’t mysteriously appear in your bedroom (or if he did, I didn’t know about it).  It’s not even a debate.

    Reply

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