"Google/YouTube created Burger King video campaign with Family Guy creator; 20M views; 65K comments. BK very happy with unique campaign," said author Newt Barrett on his March 23 tweet. This gave credibility to the Burger King advertising team to those of us young adults who absolutely love family guy!
Once I began my research on this unique campaign, I came across articles showing many Burger King collaborations. The company is taking full advantage of new media resources and its demographic. Another example of a Burger King collaboration can be found in the article "Burger King, Diddy partner for ad campaign, YouTube promotion" by Nation's Restaurant News on the blog "BNet."
This article discusses the partnership between Sean "Diddy" Combs (aka Puff Daddy) and Burger King to create a YouTube channel dedicated to Diddy's fans. In many music circles Diddy is known as the "King of Hip-Hop." Therefore, when he stated, "When two kings get together you know they gotta do it big," music fans everywhere could relate. (This original Diddy Burger King video can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLcPIolG_8E.) Burger King expects the partnership to be a "long-term relationship that is wide open in terms of Diddy's contributions as a Burger King brand ambassador," said Russ Klein, president of global marketing, strategy and innovation.
It seems that Burger King's advertising team has done an excellent job in reaching out to its American demographic of young adults and most critics would agree.
Then again, the advertising team created a facebook application to coincide with this campaign that in the opinion of John Boyle, was ineffective due to its' negativity. Although the Family Guy's basis on humor is negative, Boyle believes that not only does it effect friendships, which is the point of social networking, it goes against basic rules of the trade. "Why on earth would you create a viral marketing campaign centered on negativity? It’s the old comedy rule: Surprise the audience and stay positive. It’s always funnier," said Boyle.
Although Boyle is right that the surprise element of positivity is a great tactic, I do not agree that it is always funnier. If you watch the majority of routines done on Comedy Central and by up-and-coming comics, they are based on making fun of different areas of diversity. The most well-known comics and comical campaigns are based on negative comments that make negative stereotypes sound ignorant.
Burger King has done a great job in turning around its advertising tactics and its use of new media. Burger Kings YouTube channel can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/bk.
Monday, March 23, 2009
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