Burger King's Moldy Whopper Ad
Breaking the mold in advertisement
How well do you think an advertisement of a moldy burger would work?
In 2020 Burger King launched a global advertisement campaign of a time-lapsed Whopper decomposing for 35 days. It ends with “The beauty of no artificial preservatives.”
As a human being, isn’t something like a decomposing ‘meal’ counterintuitive?
It seems not, since the furry green burger in the ad boasted that Burger King is removing all preservatives, artificial colors, and artificial flavors from its food worldwide. Yet they never said how many artificial ingredients they were dropping.
They decided to drop a whopping 120 ingredients from their core sandwiches and sides. It’s crazy to think what those 120 ingredients were doing there in the first place, and what took so long to get rid of them. I placed the ingredients at the bottom of this newsletter in case you want to dig deeper.
The global chief market officer of Restaurant Brands International, the fast food holding company that owns Burger King, said, "At Burger King restaurants, we believe that real food tastes better." What a poet!
What worked about this ad was the shock value. This is an easily shareable image and emotion of disgust through social media. The ad was a whirlwind of praise, buzz, disgust, and conversation, as long as people are talking about it, it sounds like good publicity to me. What works best on social media nowadays is invoking an emotional response and the more negative works best, it seems.
The campaign increased sales by 14%, raising brand awareness with 8.4 billion impressions and an uplift in positive brand sentiment by 88%. It also saved quite a bit of money by throwing out 8,500 tonnes of artificial preservatives from its products worldwide between 2020 to 2023. Which is about the same weight as 38 Statues of Liberty, imagine that. Not only did they make great money from their advertisement, but they also removed 8,500 tonnes of deadweight product purchases to save even more money, checkmate.
Oh, and this ad won several awards for creativity from the Epica Awards Triple Grand Prix in Film, PR, and Print. One Show Awards Gold Pencil for print, and the D&AD Awards Black Pencil award for PR all in the year 2020. In addition to honorable mentions in Adweek 25 Best Ads of 2020, and a few more.
However disgusting the initial moldy mood board was to plan this shoot, and the challenge to propose this idea to the bigwig producers must have been a hell of a hurdle but in the end, it worked out very well.
Cheeseburger-ly Yours,
The Greasy Pen.
Here are the 120 ingredients dropped by Burger King:
Allura Red, Aluminium ammonium sulphate, Aluminium potassium sulphate. Aluminium sodium sulphate, Aluminium sulphate, Aluminum, Amaranth, Ammonium Glutamate, Ammonium Sulphate/Ammonium Sulfate, Anoxomer, Astaxanthin, Azodicarbonamide (ADA), Azorubine, Carmoisine, Benzoate and all Benzoates. Benzoic Acid, Bleached Flour, Brilliant Black BN, Black PN, Brilliant Blue FCF, Brown FK, Brown HT, Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), Butylhydroquinone, Calcium benzoate, Calcium Disodium EDTA, Calcium Glutamate, Calcium Guanylate, Calcium hydrogen sulphite, Calcium Inosinate, Calcium Lactate, Calcium Propionate, Calcium Ribonucleotides, Calcium Sorbate, Calcium sulphite, Canthaxanthin, Citrus Red, Disodium EDTA, Disodium Guanylate, GMP, Disodium Inosinate, IMP, Dodecyl gallate, Erythosine, Ethoxyquin, Ethyl p-hydroxybenzoate, Fast Green FCF, Glutamic Acid, Green S, Guanylic Acid, Hexamethylene tetramine, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Hydrolyzed Corn Protein, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, Indigotine, Indigo Carmine, Inosinic Acid, Latolrubine BK, Magnesium Glutamate, Methyl p-hydroxybenzoate, Monopotassium Glutamate, Monosodium Glutamate, Octyl gallate, Orange #1, Orange #2, Orange B, Parabens (all), Partially Hydrogenated Oils/Artificial Trans-Fats, Patent Blue, Polysorbate 20, Ponceau 4R, Potassium Benzoate, Potassium Bisulfate, Potassium Bromate, Potassium Guanylate, Potassium hydrogen sulphite, Potassium Inosinate, Potassium Lactate, Potassium metabisulphite, Potassium Nitrate (added only), Potassium Nitrite (added only), Potassium propionate, Potassium Sorbate, Potassium sulphates, Propionic acid, Propyl Gallate, Propyl-p-hydroxybenzoate, Propyl-p-hydroxybenzoate sodium salt, Quaternary Ammonium Chloride combination, Quinoline Yellow, Red #40, Red 2G, Rose Bengal B, Silver nitrate and hydrogen peroxide solution, Sodium Diacetate, Sodium ethyl p-hydroxybenzoate, Sodium hydrogen sulphite, Sodium Inosinate & Disodium Inosinate, Sodium Lactate, Sodium Metabisulfite, Sodium methyl p-hydroxybenzoate, Sodium Nitrate (added only), Sodium Propionate, Sodium Ribonucleotides, Sodium sulphates, Sodium sulphite, Sorbic Acid, Sudan Red, Sulfites (added as ingredient in formulation), Sulfur Dioxide, Sunset Yellow FCF, Orange Yellow S, Tartrazine, TBHQ, THBP, Titanium Dioxide, Trihydroxybutyrophenon, Vanillin/Artificial Vanilla, Violet #1, Yellow #1, Yellow #2, Yellow #3, Yellow #4, Yellow #5, Zeaxanthin.
Wow! I did not know. The list is crazy. Funny enough I just got the book Ultra-Processed People
Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn't Food ... and Why Can't We Stop? by Chris van Tulleken. A friend recommended it to me. You may like it too!
That list is terrifying. I never saw the add but I do remember the time when everybody was talking about how fast food doesn't decompose so I guess this was the answer to that story. I think it's pretty genius.