CP+B Break Cherries on Whopper Virgins, Nation is Grossed Out
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From Guest Editor, Jeremy Greenfield
Negative reaction across the web in response to Burger King’s latest campaign — Whopper Virgins — from Crispin Porter + Bogusky is rampant. The Daily Green calls it offensive. Adfreak calls it depressing and icky. The slightly more erudite Boston Globe accuses the campaign of colonialism and hegemony. Perhaps all valid reasons to hate this new (read: old) concept from BK and CP+B. But all wrong. So, what’s the real reason?
The real reason is because the campaign makes me want to vomit. The video/documentary/commercial or whatever grossed me out so much. The “burgers” looked like rabbit droppings mixed with rubber cement, the buns like egg crate foam with dandruff, and the vegetables like props in a movie where Will Smith plays a homeless guy and has to eat out of dumpsters. Compare shots of the “burgers” with shots of the CP+B crew eating food the natives have prepared for them: That shit looks good! And the crew can’t stop oohing and aahing over it. When they are hunched over steaming plates of freshly prepared actual food and eating it with forks and knives, it only serves to make you realize how ridiculous it is to eat self-styled “food” assembled from long-ago frozen ingredients, flavored with ingeniously made chemicals and served in wax paper wraps.
You know what else makes me want to vomit in this commercial? Perhaps it was clever that CP+B blasted off and found people who had never before had burgers and planted the BK flag deep into the lunar surfaces of their tongues. But look how these extra-Ameri-restrials poke and prod this alien food. They don’t know how to eat it, and so each one eats it as best he/she can and with extreme caution. Maybe something about the product tells them that it’s not of their world. It doesn’t matter, because all it serves to do for me is make the shit look like shit, and not people shit or even alien shit: Dog shit.
Do I find it silly that the Whopper Virgins are dressed in festive native garb at all times? Yes. Is it offensive to the countries that are targeted and to people that are either from those countries or have some relation to them? Sure. Does it also make Americans and the ad industry in particular look stupid? Damn straight.
But I love it.
Even though the campaign makes me literally want to leave my comfy chair right now and make out with my porcelain lady for hours on end, it reminds me of why I eat Burger King. Now, I don’t indulge in the King often, but when I do, it’s with a purpose. I’ve been a bad boy, and my insides need a good ripping up and cleaning out. I do it to punish my entire gastrointestinal tract. That’s right, esophagus, stomach and small intestine. You’re all getting bitch slapped when I get my Whopper on. And don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, large intestine and colon. For you, I’ve saved the best for last. My friends, you will be the conduits through which my anti-Christ Whopper shit enters the mortal realm. From now on, when I get up off my special porcelain lady-friend and look down at what I have created, the evil that I have brought into the world, I’ll think of the Whopper Virgins campaign.
Jeremy Greenfield is a contributor to AdFreak, Adweek’s blog.
Comments
Disgusted in Denver December 10, 2008
For me, this begs the
For me, this begs the question, is it really worth corrupting the few pure indigenous cultures still remaining, just to sell a fucking product?
You might try to wrap this in the guise of a social experiment, but it’s more a case of social exploitation.
What value did this experience bring to the people who were featured in the ads? Did it make their lives any better? Did it expose the rest of the world to their cultures and way of life? Or did it simply exploit them as a cheap gimmick for C&P’s and Burger King’s gain? Shame on both of them.
In this age of social responsibility, this is a blatant example of social irresponsibility perpetuated by the advertising industry. We need to be better than this.
world traveller December 10, 2008
someone should have told
someone should have told those third-world dickheads that their hats were too small.
paul suggett December 10, 2008
It’s hardly original, either.
It’s hardly original, either. It’s just the Pepsi Challenge but instead of wearing a blindfold, they found people blind to the product. It does leave a nasty taste in the mouth. But it’s typical CP&B in the way that it focuses on the product. And Whopper Virgins is a great line.
Jeremy Greenfield December 10, 2008
I’m with you, Disgusted. I
I’m with you, Disgusted. I think the question that needs to be asked is: Does the negative reaction that this campaign creates help or hurt BK? In the post-advertising age, I think it hurts BK. Think about something like the opposite of the Prius halo effect: Something the company did that’s possibly unrelated to your experience with the company that causes you to have an unfavorable opinion of it. (Like, if I buy a Camry because I think that Toyotas are fuel efficient even though a Camry might be less fuel efficient than a Malibu.) Does BK leave a sour taste in some people’s mouths now? It does mine…not that it ever did anything but that.
barfer December 11, 2008
BARF
BARF
blinky December 11, 2008
Tacky.
Corrupt.
Irresponsib
Tacky.
Corrupt.
Irresponsible.
Greedy.
I think this just may be the motivation I need to stop eating their crap.
Scandall December 11, 2008
Virgins are way cool.
Virgins are way cool.
Hmmmm December 11, 2008
Really – none of you found
Really – none of you found this interesting?
Sure there is the stench of advertising, but guess what? It’s what we all do for a living. So spare me the Sally Struther’s soap-boxing.
To think that we take the most simple of things for granted – down to how we hold a sandwich, blows me away.
Simply put. This campaign was interesting – as a traveler, as a foodie (yes, I loath fast-food and it’s practices – I don’t eat it), and certainly as someone studies human behavior. To me, this whole thing was fascinating.
Now, I can’t help but think the hate comes from hipster, soap-boxing ‘tards, who’s only cultural exploration came on the heals of a European Vacation discovered only under the umbrella of mommy and daddy’s trust-fund.
I’ll digress. It was a good experiment, shot well and it was way more interesting than the creepy “king.”
Justin December 11, 2008
Haha. That’s hilarious
Haha. That’s hilarious writing.
I find it amusing how CP+B spends a good two minutes selling you on how the hamburger testers are “off the grid”. If they’re going to do that, don’t tell us the Burger King is 15 minutes away from the supposedly isolated town. That’s just ridiculous. I’m sure somebody would stumble on it while riding their horse out there.
Joenonymous December 11, 2008
Offensive? Depressing? Have
Offensive? Depressing? Have we sunk so low as a food culture that we can’t help but feel guilty about sharing our fair with others. I haven’t. Beef rules. Seal meat sucks. Go whopper.
Corey Hayes December 11, 2008
Have any of you ever traveled
Have any of you ever traveled to a foreign country and tried something new? Did you know how to eat it? Or, did you look around and realize that the natives were eating it differently?
For once they showed what the burgers actually looked like, not a model burger made for the shoot. Did anyone see people tied down and burgers forced down their throat? Or were these natives excited to see different people with different fair?
CP+B is yet again doing something provocative that will bring attention to their client. Isn’t that why they keep their accounts?
lauren December 11, 2008
cpb = spencer pratt & heidi
cpb = spencer pratt & heidi montag
Jeremy Greenfield December 11, 2008
Wow. A lot to get to:
Wow. A lot to get to:
Hmmmm: I found it interesting, sure. Hence the article. But, my true gut reaction, what I felt while watching, was revulsion. I felt slightly ill, almost like after watching certain parts of “Super Size Me”. Is that how BK wants its potential customers to feel like when they watch its branded content? Even if it does get tons of press?
Justin: Tell me more about me. Say it slow.
Joenonymous: I am willing to bet that you work at CP+B or BK. Either way, you’re still a person and, more importantly, a commenter. I agree with you: I like beef. I like the beef I get at my local super, the 85% lean (read: real fatty) that I cook up in my frying pan. The Whopper might contain beef—I’m willing to bet it does—but I don’t think I’m going to have one for a while, if ever. Pass me a BK Big Fish, if anything.
Corey: Going back to an earlier point, I don’t think “attention” is the name of the game anymore, especially for a brand as ubiquitous as Burger King. I think it’s about positive attention and real brand connections that are built through product, conversation, information, use and narrative. I’m not going to go into all that shite now, lest I pass out and do a face plant on my keyboard.
randall December 11, 2008
the reaction to the campaign
the reaction to the campaign is the campaign.
lauren December 11, 2008
yeah but who is getting all
yeah but who is getting all the attention? bk or cpb? seems that as of late cpb is getting just as much, if not more attention than the clients who hire them.
Adam December 11, 2008
The justification that we
The justification that we were doing nothing more than “sharing our fair (sic)” with another culture suggests such a moral blind spot that I wonder if it’s worth it to reply, but I’m going to anyway.
First of all, I’ve been to these areas. It can be reasonably argued that westernization benefits these people by bringing them better practices in education, health care, sanitation, etc.
The tribes in Chiang Mai are already suffering decline from a much uglier kind of “sharing” with the western world. Tour agencies from the nearby cities encourage them to open up their tribes to tourists so they can come in and ride elephants and bamboo rafts. Some of the tribes already grow opium; they’re encouraged to grow more and share it with the tourists who come through. These tribes end up sinking into a hole of dependency on the tour agencies for their livelihood, as they no longer do anything to run their lives other than traffic tourists on elephants and sell (and use) drugs.
Before any of you say it, no I am not comparing sharing a whopper with this kind of practice. My point is that it’s one thing to help a fledgling culture by introducing them to new (positive) ideas, and change their own environment for the better by helping them work with what they have. It’s quite another to dangle an icon of unsustainable and unhealthy living in front of their faces and then jaunt away. If any of you want to argue that the whopper is anything but that icon in the context of a self-sustaining, balanced microcosm like an unspoiled Thai tribe, you’re lost anyway so don’t bother.
Go ahead, take a sip of your venti and tell yourself that “this is what we do for a living.” Don’t worry, if they lose anything of themselves for the worse, you won’t feel the effect of their loss anyway.
I’ll get off my soap box and go back to spending my dad’s trust fund, now.
josh mishell December 11, 2008
i found it to be
i found it to be disappointing. a huge budget to fly these guys, including stacy peralta and their equipment all over the world and this is the result? not to mention a national tv campaign (even when people aren’t advertising, it’s still expensive to buy tv spots).
i do like that they showed the actual sandwiches, and they’re hideous looking.
the only way this could have gone more wrong is if they got jerry seinfeld to interact with these people. oh, wait, that was another CP+B disaster.
i was really looking forward to this dosumentary, too. sometimes you shoot for the moon and you hit the roof.
Backwoods Local December 11, 2008
I’d just like to send a big
I’d just like to send a big fuck you to burger king for making your shitty ass burgers the first impression these people will ever have with a hamburger. Way to soil the reputation of one of man’s greatest inventions.
Jeremy Greenfield December 11, 2008
Adam: All good points. Let’s
Adam: All good points. Let’s refocus the discussion through that lens.
Readers out there in the ad world: Consider that there are lots of “Adams” out there. Maybe they weren’t going to go to BK anyway, but now look what they’re doing: They’re going on the web and posting angry complaints about the campaign and the client. Valid angry complaints. Is this what CP+B was hired by BK to do? Does it help or hurt the brand? (I would say hurt.) This is is just one aspect of what is becoming a very complicated marketing story.
Kudos, no doubt, to CP+B for being innovative, but I think this campaign is in the process of backfiring. (And at what cost?! You think it’s free to fly an army of people and supplies to remote areas of the world to conduct surveys and film a documentary? Let alone the TV time, media buying, etc, etc?)
Disgusted in Denver December 11, 2008
Dear Hmmmmmm,
“Sure there is
Dear Hmmmmmm,
“Sure there is the stench of advertising, but guess what? It’s what we all do for a living.”
You are an idiot.
My revulsion isn’t about our industry as a whole, it’s about our industry going too far. There are ways to do what we do with integrity, or at least without raping other cultures purely for the sake of selling a hamburger, which is what this did. Under your thinking, it would be ok to unleash a pack of hyenas into a kindergarten class as long as it gets attention for our client, because “It’s what we all do for a living.”
Then there’s your comment: “To think that we take the most simple of things for granted – down to how we hold a sandwich, blows me away.”
Further proof that you are an idiot, or at least a living example of the mindless automaton that corporate America (read: “most clients) insists all consumers are. You are obviously simply trudging through life with your head down if something as simple as being told there are people who don’t know how to eat a sandwich is an eye opener for you. I can only imagine what might happen if somebody told you that a vehicle weighing thousands of pounds and made of metal could fly. Complete system shut down maybe?
BTW, there are vehicles called airplanes weighing thousands of pounds and made of metal that can actually fly.
Backwoods Local December 11, 2008
interesting? provocative?
interesting? provocative? hardly. just a retread of a well-worn concept. in fact i think this is more akin to making fun of foreign exchange students (which is probably why BK’s young male demographic will love the ads).
Pieratt December 12, 2008
There’s a Burger King 15
There’s a Burger King 15 minutes away from these locations.
15 minutes.
How is there a discussion about this campaign polluting these poor virginal cultures? Any damage done by gut-busting convenience was done a long time ago.
I do agree with Backwoods Local’s first comment, though.
Jeremy Greenfield December 12, 2008
The point of the “spoiling
The point of the “spoiling virginal culture” discussion, Pieratt, is not that we’re criticizing the campaign for doing so (at least I’m not), but that we’re noting the negative reaction by the campaign’s target audience (everyone, duh) to what BK may or may not be doing to “virginal culture”. Ps, if you are aware of any cultures where all the ladies are maidens, please let me know where they live and what is their phone number.
Christopher Cox December 13, 2008
Desperate times call for
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Fast food is on it’s way out in this country. We all know in the back of our minds that it doesn’t really even constitute as real food. It’s more like engineered cancer inducing tasty garbage.
Its like someone said earlier, the reaction to the campaign is the campaign and I think that is the whole point. They got eyes on it and they got a reaction.
It doesn’t change the fact that I don’t really care about Burger King or fast food and my wife and I refuse to touch it and will definitely not be feeding it to our kids.
If they were trying to succeed in making people wonder just whether or not a whopper really does taste that good, they will probably succeed with a few but chances are it won’t stem the healthy food craze by a long shot in this country anyway. But they probably succeeded in doing what their client asked them too and this is the advertising business.
Lee Stonehouse December 15, 2008
Did they really get that big
Did they really get that big of a reaction though? Sure I thought it was in bad taste (cough), but honestly I just thought the ads were ‘kinda bland.
Slightly disgusted by it,
slightly thought it was a good idea,
and that’s really about it.
Didn’t really grab my attention in a positive or negative way (or in any way honestly).
I really don’t think that CP&B were going for this kind of reaction (why would you want a “disgusted” reaction like this with food). You could argue that any PR is good PR, but I call BS in this case. If they really were going for this reaction… more kudos to them I guess?
Kelly December 16, 2008
Let’s not drop this issue…
Let’s not drop this issue…
One thing I’d hope we have learned is that pressing ourselves onto others’ culture for the sack of a publicity stunt is not acceptable. I thought we moved on from that…I’d like to say for myself and what sounds to me many other people: let’s try to quit shoving burgers into people’s faces.
If you asked them to compare apples to oranges, then I’d be interested. Milk and honey vs. tea and honey; I’d care.
But no one gives a crap about greasy projects dressed up as some sort of mockumentary.
But, thank you to CP+B for showing us, delivering to everyone, what BK is all about. They did a superb job. And now we, as the clientbase, have opportunities to respond.
If you at Egotist care, here’s my rant. A lamentation to Burger King:
Stop wasting money selling crap to such far-flung people and instead work so focused to improve, that you simply forget to stick noses into others’ business.
Unless it’s our music, our culture and food, traditions, values, things we deem only high quality; that enrich and inspire and insight – let these be what we share.
Just because BK has moola, doesn’t mean they win. But they do have freedom to do spend their money this way. Were these people compensated in some way?
And the ad says the closest BK is 15 minutes from the test site – not these individuals’ homes. Where were they brought in from? LA?
I think the King is playing another joke on us.
Alright- digressing and jumping now down from a pissy soapboox.
KP
Brian W. December 18, 2008
i don’t know, there are few
i don’t know, there are few lines i wouldn’t like to see crossed in prudish freaking american culture. especially in advertising with all these becky home-ec-ies and good ole boys approving shit.
i just wish the tv was better. and maybe if it was aware of itself as being rooted in colonialism.
but whatever. when was the last time you saw the words colonialism or hegemony in a newspaper? that’s rad. i bet the academics are all a twitter cuz someone’s slingin’ their jargon.
KY January 2, 2009
After reading all the
After reading all the comments… I noticed that no one mentioned why B.K. knew the “virgins” would pick the Whopper over the B.M.
In the ads I have seen the native people have not experienced this type of food before… Hence they would probably go for what was most familiar to them…such as the tomato slice, fresh onion and lettuce that is not chopped.. kinda like cholacte covered bugs, I wouldnt think of eating a bug by itself but might be talked into one covered in candy… I bet they thought they both SUCKED!!..just one had more familial ingredients..
Nice on the marketing thought process sneeky buggers!!…. Still all B.S. in the long run..
Just a thought…