Meet Burger King's new creative director
The first objective of advertising isn’t to be clever, to shock, to inspire, to get people talking, nor even to be clear. (Although that last one is the second objective.) The first objective is to move product.
Which is why it’s been impressed upon McFarlane Media several times that the ultimate ad is the hand-painted billboard that reads “Hot Dogs $2”. What the product is, and why you should buy it – in this case, presumably because it’s cheap enough that the sign painter thought its price was worth mentioning.
Of course, adding subtlety or even a datum of information requires a more complex ad. Otherwise we never would have advanced as a species from cave paintings to Principia Mathematica. A proper ad for a MacBook Pro or a Lexus GX470 needs more than just a product mention and a single selling feature to make its point.
For a relatively involved product, some sober illustration or demonstration of its benefits will help. For a stylish or trendy product, an advertiser needs maybe a more subjective feeling of tone and color to position said product to a fickle customer base.
And for a fast-food sandwich, you clearly need pre-adolescent sex jokes.
(Body copy: “Fill your desire for something long, juicy,…etc.)
Behold the latest brilliance from a Singaporean agency that Burger King is so proud of doing business with that the company refuses to mention them by name in press releases. (The ad runs only in Singapore, a nation where spitting on the sidewalk can result in corporal punishment.) Burger King’s American agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, isn’t responsible for it. CP+B might have devised that hideously disturbing king mannequin measuring women’s posteriors with a ruler, not to mention Darius Rucker serenading a scene that apparently came from one of Steven Adler’s dreams, but the agency can wash their hands of any involvement with this one.
There’s nothing wrong with ribald humor. We’re not an agency of nuns and eunuchs. But Good Lord.
And don’t think that there’s some inherent value in the campaign simply because “Well, look at you. You’re talking about it.” Several newspaper column inches, filmstrips, magazine articles, books and conversations were devoted to World War II. Just because something gets people talking doesn’t mean that it’s of value.
Detroit City Council recently took time away from watching its miserable excuse for a metropolis crumble into oblivion to claim that racial stereotyping in billboards is “killing (their) community”. Do people of Nordic descent have a legitimate gripe over the depiction of a blonde, blue-eyed woman as someone who needs her cravings satisfied by 7 thick inches of juicy meat? Are Singaporean ad agencies that racist? Or are Singaporean women just naturally content with less impressive sandwiches?
Does the Burger King campaign move product? Not if its American counterpart is any indication. Does it force Singaporean mothers into uncomfortable conversations with their kids? Probably. Does it compel? No. It simply gives an unimaginative creative department a chance to justify its existence via the inexact mensuration of “buzz”. They can do better. And as consumers, we can do better.
As a real agency with actual writers, McFarlane Media can do better still. Email us today for work far better than what you see here. info@McFarlaneUSA.com
