A new Burger King advertising spot out of Russia has been going viral this morning, and it isn’t hard to see why. While the fast food franchise has been working hard to tone things down in the United States – most recently, the brand jettisoned its former ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, along with our beloved King, in favor of close-up shots of onions and tomatoes. Across the Bering Strait, however, Burger King still knows how to get weird. We have to say, we like it.
Magic tricks, unicorns, marriage proposals, tattooed hipster girls with Technicolor hair, giant burger turntables, and fire breathing chefs (that’s how you get that flame-broiled taste): this commercial has everything. It even has the same sun-kissed chopped tomato, washed onion, salt sprinkling food porn footage from our McGarryBowen-produced stateside ads for the California Whopper. But a split second later, it has morphed into tomatoes being cut mid-air by some kind of mustachioed mobster. It's like something dreamed up by Entertainment 720, and reminds us of the old Burger King advertising days (back when the Subservient Chicken that got us all to buy BK Chicken Fries).
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In short, we love the sheer weirdness of this entertaining commercial and wish we could see more like it around these parts. Maybe it would help – despite its new menu items being a success, reports indicate that Burger King same-store sales in the last quarter rose elsewhere but stagnated in the United States and Canada. Maybe what we need isn’t a new French fry recipe – maybe all we need is a little crazy unpredictable advertising to shake things up and remember what sets Burger King apart.
