Atomic Idea: How to Fix Burger King.

Here's the idea for BK.

Deliver on the promise of your advertising and you'll blow people's minds!

Burger king has (yet another) new agency McGarryBowen and a new commercial. The creepy king has been replaced by glorious (though somewhat stock-footagy) shots of "fresh" ingredients being sliced, diced and prepared for the final image... an equally glorious shot of the new burger designed to elicit a pavlovian response from consumers and drive them into Burger King in droves. Here's what it looks like 

(view the commercial here):

We actually like the idea of focussing on the food. But McGarryBowen doesn't really have any control over whether or not Burger King delivers on the promise of the advertising.

So do they? Here's one consumer's opinion.

 

Great looking commercial, full of promise. Not so great looking burger, full of, er, lettuce. We're guessing there may be a lot of similar experiences accross the country as more people try the California Whopper. Bummer.

So again, here's the killer idea:

Deliver on the promise of your advertising and you'll blow people's minds!

Imagine this. People open the box and the burger actually looks almost as good as the one in the commercial and actually tastes as good as the commercial implies it will. Eureka! Now that would get people talking... all over the Internet, all over the world! "Tastes as good as it looks. Looks as good as it tastes - unbelievable!" 

No consumer in this day and age remotely expects the fast food burger they buy at the restaurant to look anything like the burger they saw in the advertising. So if you could make it actually happen (and advertise that), you'd be the first... the one and only... the Burger King! Imagine the buzz. Imagine the press.

Of course, your ad agency can't really help you make it happen. First you have to fix a very expensive list of operational problems and customer experience issues that continue to negatively affect your sales. Then you would have to train your employees to actually make the burgers look almost as good as they do in the commercials. Impossible? Well, nothing's really impossible. And as new owners, you have the benefit of a fresh perspective. Look what Tata has already done to help reinvigorate the Jaguar brand since they purchased it from Ford, "a case study of how a strong and committed management can make even a difficult acquisition work." 

Deliver on the promise of your advertising and you'll blow people's minds!

Honestly, this may seem like a way too simple idea; maybe even a crazy one. But man, if people opened that box and actually got what you told/showed them they were going to get, they'd all be saying, "I'm Loving It!" If that happened, McDonald's may actually start to worry, and we think Burger King's future would be a lot more, er, promising.

Comments

[Russ Tate]

Waking up with the king... Arghhh!

[Name Withheld]

Another way to fix Burger King --- trash the microwaves! Go into any Burger King at non-peak hours and you get a "nuked" burger. And most of them nuke the lettuce, tomato and pickle along with it. If you've ever bitten into a hot pickle...well, let's just say it's creepier than "waking up with the king."