The premise of the Crispin, Porter & Bogusky campaign is: "If you want a real opinion about a burger, ask someone who doesn't even have a word for burger."
Called 'Whopper Virgins', the campaign started with teaser ads on TV directing people to an identically named website, which promises to reveal the results of the test on Sunday afternoon US time.
The site is currently hosting a slideshow of pictures of the Transylvanian farmers, Hmong tribesman in Thailand and a remote community in Greenland, matched with teaser lines such as "Watch the whopper virgins take their first bite".
The tactic has not played well with some sections of society. Academic Sharon Akabas of the Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University lambasted the campaign as "outrageous" and "insulting".
Akabas told the New York Daily News: "What's next? Are we going to start taking guns out to some of these remote places and ask them which one they like better."
Marilyn Borchardt, development director for Food First, told the paper the campaign was insensitive: "The ad's not even acknowledging that there's even hunger in any of these places."
Some bloggers have also given it the thumbs-down. The Inquisitor said: "It's hard to place exactly where this begins on the level of wrongness".
Burger King has not commented directly on the reaction to the campaign.
However, Russ Klein, the company's president of global marketing, strategy and innovation, told the Wall Street Journal it approached the project with "extreme care" and "the first order of business was to be certain that we conducted the filming with respect for the cultures and people involved in the test".
Klein said the aim of the campaign was to find out how the Whopper "would perform in a world that didn't have ad or marketing awareness or any sentimental attachments" to either Burger King or McDonald's.
Comments
For goodness sake get a life. It's bit of fun. It's a hamburger, nor a nuclear bomb
..sorry, NOT a nuclear bomb.
Although the notion of surveying people with little or no ad-related primers might imply a 'purer' response, the realities are a little different. Regardless of Western Society's exposure to competing brand communication, our taste buds are far more in tune with each others - after decades of overloading on sugar and salt - than the non-Western dietary consumer.
This is a PR stunt and will generate a fair bit of media state. I don't think the guys at IPSOS-Mori should be too concerned.
When I saw this commercial, it was cut of by another commercial before it was identified as being a BK-thing...my wife & I thought it was going to be a "Real Meat" or Pork commercial or something...
Villager tries it, and the subtitle says something like "What is this cr@$? This isn't meat!" or "Oh, in USA people eat cats mixed with shoes?" or something, ending with the obligatory "Beef - It's What's For Dinner" or "Pork - the Other White Meat" or something.
Ah well...maybe another time...
"It's not a nuclear bomb"
You're right, it's a neutron bomb of dumb-ness.. It's bad enough our own food industry is trying to kill us, but shoving this excrement down the faces of people who - if the nonsense claim is to be believed - have never had a "hamburger" before will make them physically sick. The chemistry involved in making the "American sandwich" is bad for human organisms, plain and simple. Too bad the camera crews didn't stick around for the sugar crash and rounds of diarrhea that ensued an hour or so after the poor people ate this slop.
This campaign is in incredibly bad taste. It's exploitative, crude and condescending. The jackass holding up the handmade coat in the video saying, "this took like a month to make and, like, he just gave it to me..." says it all. Hopeless, brainless and thoughtless. Amusingly, the crew's barely concealed disgust for the crap they are peddling simply oozes from under their shiny new fleeces. I can just hear them back home, going on about how "I don't like the stuff, but it was so cooool to be among those cool, like... free people." Ugh. Cringier that the Office Christmas Special.
More interesting is how Crispin Porter could have gotten this right. "Creating a controversy" is not something a client like Burger King does without having substantial positive results on the back end. If there is any controversy, it is unintended and is just being spun as a victory. It's not, and I hope someone gets fired over this. Anyway, how hard would it have been to compare the nutritional value of what the "natives" usually eat with the whopper? Couldn't that have been done in a funny way? How about bringing a typical American Joe Whopper Eater and having him try to perform the daily tasks of the "natives" on his Whopper diet? That'd be funny too. Seriously, the commercial was an offensive, dumb idea badly executed. Thanks for hosting the discussion though!
Comments
RICHARD WILLIAMS - 05/12/2008
For goodness sake get a life. It's bit of fun. It's a hamburger, nor a nuclear bomb
RICHARD WILLIAMS - 05/12/2008
..sorry, NOT a nuclear bomb.
Andy Knell - 05/12/2008
Although the notion of surveying people with little or no ad-related primers might imply a 'purer' response, the realities are a little different. Regardless of Western Society's exposure to competing brand communication, our taste buds are far more in tune with each others - after decades of overloading on sugar and salt - than the non-Western dietary consumer. This is a PR stunt and will generate a fair bit of media state. I don't think the guys at IPSOS-Mori should be too concerned.
Mike Balonek - 06/12/2008
When I saw this commercial, it was cut of by another commercial before it was identified as being a BK-thing...my wife & I thought it was going to be a "Real Meat" or Pork commercial or something... Villager tries it, and the subtitle says something like "What is this cr@$? This isn't meat!" or "Oh, in USA people eat cats mixed with shoes?" or something, ending with the obligatory "Beef - It's What's For Dinner" or "Pork - the Other White Meat" or something. Ah well...maybe another time...
Micah Jayne - 11/12/2008
"It's not a nuclear bomb" You're right, it's a neutron bomb of dumb-ness.. It's bad enough our own food industry is trying to kill us, but shoving this excrement down the faces of people who - if the nonsense claim is to be believed - have never had a "hamburger" before will make them physically sick. The chemistry involved in making the "American sandwich" is bad for human organisms, plain and simple. Too bad the camera crews didn't stick around for the sugar crash and rounds of diarrhea that ensued an hour or so after the poor people ate this slop. This campaign is in incredibly bad taste. It's exploitative, crude and condescending. The jackass holding up the handmade coat in the video saying, "this took like a month to make and, like, he just gave it to me..." says it all. Hopeless, brainless and thoughtless. Amusingly, the crew's barely concealed disgust for the crap they are peddling simply oozes from under their shiny new fleeces. I can just hear them back home, going on about how "I don't like the stuff, but it was so cooool to be among those cool, like... free people." Ugh. Cringier that the Office Christmas Special. More interesting is how Crispin Porter could have gotten this right. "Creating a controversy" is not something a client like Burger King does without having substantial positive results on the back end. If there is any controversy, it is unintended and is just being spun as a victory. It's not, and I hope someone gets fired over this. Anyway, how hard would it have been to compare the nutritional value of what the "natives" usually eat with the whopper? Couldn't that have been done in a funny way? How about bringing a typical American Joe Whopper Eater and having him try to perform the daily tasks of the "natives" on his Whopper diet? That'd be funny too. Seriously, the commercial was an offensive, dumb idea badly executed. Thanks for hosting the discussion though!