Creepy Kings
Posted: September 21st, 2009 | Filed under: Pop Culture | 72 Comments »
I don’t understand advertising. I will readily admit this. There are apparently subtleties and nuances in commercials that attack the subconscious in ways that stretch beyond my feeble mind. Like the commercial where the guy throws the beer can at his grandfather and hits him in the head … OK, I probably laughed the first time or two I saw it. But I couldn’t tell you what beer it was, and I couldn’t tell you why that commercial will make me buy that beer. Apparently it will, though. Someone paid a lot of money.
But the Burger King commercials are something else. The theme — and I do appreciate that I’m probably not grasping all of the delicate underpinnings and literary implications — is that you don’t want to go bed before the King. The King, as you know, is a big-headed mascot with mustache, a beard, a Burger King crown but without an operational mouth. And the reason you don’t want to go to bed before him is because he will be in your eerily darkened room when you are mostly naked and he will blow an airhorn in the middle of the night or team up with someone to dump feathers on your head while he blows a leaf blower at you.
And then the King will laugh and laugh and laugh without moving his mouth.
Now, I will readily admit that I get creeped out more easily than most. There is an old Waltons episode — the Poltergeist one — that I have not quite gotten over in 30 years. So, yes, I can say that maybe someone still haunted by an episode of the Waltons is not the best person to gauge whether or not something is disturbing. But, yeah, I find these Burger King commercials to be really creepy. You have a Blair Witch Project camera catching half naked young men in bed late at night with a laughing mime without a working mouth … yes, you have hit just about every one of my phobias. Throw in a ventriloquist’s dummy, a few spiders and the announcement that they are going to the make “The Story of Us II” and you could keep me awake for the next six months.
So … what’s the point here? Is it to show that the King is really a jovial monarch, the sort who enjoys a good college prank (who doesn’t?) and as such deserves your fast-food business? Is it to burn an image in your mind so unsettling that you will not dare pass another Burger King without stopping in? Or am I missing the deeper meaning and larger purpose — that this commercial, as unnerving as it may seem, serves its role and leaves a lasting message, which after all is the purpose of advertising. What is that message? Maybe it is that Burger King is open late.
Then again, the message could be that the King is watching you when you are sleeping. And, though his mouth does not move, he is laughing. Oh, make no mistake. The King is laughing.
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Circle me, flame-broiled Whopper
Where’s the Whopper, String?
Where’s the Whopper?
For some reason, The King’s callous pranks remind me of the king in the Poe story “Hop-Frog.” Great, now I’ve may have made that flame-broiled freak even creepier. Damn you, Burger King!
My thought is that this campaign, much like most of them out there today, was a success in its origin, and the brains behind it are not responsible drinkers; they don’t know when to say when.
Initially, when the King was super-imposed into NFL clips, i.e. the old hook-and-ladder segment with the Vikings and Randy Moss, they were hilarious. The next set of them were pretty funny, too, but they went downhill from there. The logic of, let’s change the King’s look: We’ll make him space-age, then witty, then just creepy, is actually totally illogical.
You could make the same argument with the Geico pile of money, the five-dollar footlong, and even the Progressive girl. Great, inventive, catchy ideas at first. Now so beat down, you’ll almost go out of your way to avoid that product, or at least feel bad in purchasing it.
I was just thinking to myself yesterday as I drove by a nearby Burger King that I have not eaten at any Burger King in at least 5 years – maybe longer. I once enjoyed their Whopper Sandwich but why did they have to call it a “sandwich”? It was a “burger” to me. Does some other franchise hold the trademark for the word “burger”? Odd….
As far as the creepy King goes. Yeh, I have not seen a reason to visit Burger King for so long that maybe it’s because of the damn King! Perhaps I secretly have a need to avoid the big-headed King-dude. Well, that and their fries suck!
You are not the only one. The commercials where the King suddenly appears to someone who has just completed a hard task (the lumberjack, for example) remind me of nothing so much as the creepy girls from “The Shining.” I keep expecting him to beckon, “Come play with me,” and then the elevators behind him open and a wall of ketchup pours out. If anything, those commercials make me give all Burger Kings a wide berth because of the possibility, however slight, that the King will be there.*
*And there is that possibility–I have encountered the Chick-Fil-A cow in a Chick-Fil-A. And while the idea of an animal urging you to eat other animals is fairly cruel, at least it makes a lot of sense. I’d like to see the Chick-Fil-A cow take out the King, in fact.
Mom is creeped out that most of the “King” commercials are set in bedroom settings. Not only in the late night series, but there was one years ago when the “King” was in the bed when you woke up.
I was on the way to watch my nephew’s baseball game Saturday morning. As I waited to turn left at an intersection, a pickup truck went past in the opposite direction – I was somewhat startled to noticed the driver wearing clown makeup.
I nearly called the cops. Creeped the livin’ hell outta me.
Joe, did you catch the Royals game tonight? Ryan Lefeberve totally threw you under the bus commenting how you destroyed him in your blog. He talked about how important it was that a number 3 hitter should drive in runs and not worry about his OBP (sadly, Frank White sort of agreed). Of course right after he said this, Jacobs walked (granted he’s the #4 hitter), allowing Callaspo to double and tie the game. Later, just to further validate your point, even Olivio walked!! It seems to me that Ryan, like GMDM, is missing the importance of walks even though they were the keys to the Royals winning tonight’s game. Any chance you could talk to Ryan again about the importance of OBP for middle of the order hitters? Maybe with tonight’s example you can bring him over to the light.
The King in Yellow? Yeah, creepy.
Malcolm Gladwell in Blink did a good job of explaining adverts like the above one. The creepy factor is intentional and the purpose that it serves is to make the spot memorable. Its idiosyncratic nature makes it ’sticky’, in your case to the point that it is troubling/annoying. Which is actually good for B.K. because it is human nature to discuss annoyances and people less disturbed are now just pondering an odd Burger King commercial.
‘Attack the subconscious’ is a good way to look at these ads, Joe. Why did B.K. abandon its previous campaign, a talking drive through menu board voiced by Adam Carolla for the ‘King’, what if anything is fundamentally different between the two campaigns? Consider what an anthropomorphic toddler toy did for a chain that was drowning in the wake of a E. Coli outbreak. Oddly funny mascots assuaged the fears of a broad demographic.
But here is the real question, I would imagine that you are busy, why do you not have and use a DVR?
Joe — I realize that this has nothing to do with your post, but I’m in dire need of some quality Poz pontification on how exactly the Royals have managed to win 11 of their last 14 games. Or more to the point, how it’s possible to be so awful — I mean, consider how extraordinarily awful you have to be in 3 months to precede and follow those months with 18-over-.500 baseball and still be 26 games UNDER overall … what was I saying? Oh yes, to be so awful at times, and then suddenly be so … so … promising. Great, really. I mean, how unusual is it for a team to be as inconsistent — no, BIPOLAR — as the Royals have been this year?
Yeah, I think bankmeister at #3 is right on. It’s so rare that you hit on an advertising concept that’s funny and original, and when you do the incentive to just keep doing it and doing it is great.
Burger King hadn’t had a really memorable campaign in, what, 30 years? And then the first batch of King spots were really funny and well-received. Can you blame them for trying to run with it? I mean, that’s a career-maker for somebody.
Food ads really get to people. My mom once wrote a letter to Quiznos complaining about the ad where the woman jumps in a dumpster to retrieve a (partially-eaten?) sub. She said it was gross and made her never want to eat Quiznos.
Of course, they replied with coupons good for free subs. (I never asked if she threw them in a dumpster.)
Anyone remember the magazine cigarette ads (Kool, I think it was) from the 70s and 80s? For years they got away with subliminal violence disguised with attractive people smiling and having fun. There’d be a girl on her back with her legs in the air and something phallic pointed at her head. You didn’t notice until someone pointed it out and then you couldn’t ignore it. I think there was a Spy magazine article on it. Disturbing.
I was once asked to watch a pilot for an upcoming show, to get my opinion.
The show was beyond awful. Really lame jokes you could see coming a mile away. Bad acting. Stupid plot. It was nowhere near even the low standards of TV sitcoms.
And here’s the thing. When they called me back to ask me my opinion, almost all of the questions were about the ads. They didn’t ask if I liked the ads, or what I thought about them, or if I used the product or if I thought I might. They asked me 3 very simple questions. Did I remember the ad? Did I remember the product? And did I remember the brand name?
Nothing else mattered. At the end, the person taking the survey apologized for the awful quality of the show. I don’t think anybody ever intended to air that thing for real.
I can remember when the Burger King was played by a real actor. He did silly sleight-of-hand tricks, like making onion rings form into a chain.
I can remember McDonaldland, too, but I wish I couldn’t.
To back up Jim @8, Lefebvre’s comments during the broadcast reached the high comedy point for me when they started the top of the 7th inning by saying the Olivo’s walk was the key play of the game. This was just minutes after both Lefebvre and White (no relation) proclaimed that middle of the order hitters should be concerned with driving in runs, not drawing walks. They were clearly oblivious to the fact that they were contradicting their own commentary from the prior half-inning.
I don’t get to watch much TV, but wow… those commercials do sound a little stalkery or something. I like watching the King make interceptions on the football field, but, I’ll always love the Subservient Chicken idea that BK came out with a few years ago.
“He’s sees you when you’re sleeping,
He knows when you’re awake…”
King= Santa Claus?
Even more creepy were the first ones where you “Wake up with the King” that had him crawl into bed with unsuspecting people who would wake up looking into that creepy face, and somehow, instead of running screaming for the hills or reaching for their gun or club, gladly took the offer of a breakfast sandwich while cuddling with the king.
I hate that creepy King, and so does my wife. Our usual explanation for commercials like this is that they are obviously not trying to attract our demographic.
Joe – Your announcer buddies were talking about you last night. My condolences to KC fans – they deserve people that know that OBP is not just walks added onto batting average. One has to wonder if the front office is similarly staffed. (well, no, not really
Commercials are not created by MBAs who are driven by the profit motive. They’re created by advertising agencies filled with arty, self-styled bohemians who are making commercials primarily for their own amusement or enjoyment.
When you see any weird commercial that seems unrelated to the product it’s supposed to be selling, remember that.
I’m so tired of middle of the order guys who draw walks. Ruth, Gehrig, Williams, Bonds, Frank Thomas, Edgar Martinez, Jim Thome… Boy, were those guys horrible.
I heard that Burger King was just trying to get out in front of the new Subway ad campaign where Jared participates in a bunch increasingly violent home invasions.
The fast food wars are not for the weak of heart.
The odd thing about stickiness in ads is that all the research shows that stickiness and effectiveness (getting people to actually buy your product) are NOT related. For the stat heads here, the stats show that just because people remember an add, that does not mean they actually change their behavior in the way you want.
And yet, just like Lefevre and White, many ad people are stuck in the dark ages, and think that stickiness=sales, when the stat head MBAs have shown its not true….
This post, Joe, is remarkably related to your normal posts.
btw, I hate those ads, hate them, and even when travelling long distances will go out of my way not to eat at BK because of them.
The King is a Golem figure, an animate being formed from inanimate matter (not clay, in this case, but raw hamburger meat). The missing mouth is a Freudian construct used to represent one’s fear of rejection (and eventual death) via forcible removal from nurturing at mother’s breast. No wonder it’s bleeping scary.
@3 -
I still dig the Progressive girl. I can’t explain it. I just do.
@28 -
It’s the tricked-out name tag…
The crazy thing is the more annoying or crazy a commercial is, the more people remember it. I used to make a lot of local car ads and it seemed like the most annoying spots were the most effective in getting people to the dealership.
The creepiest BK ads were the morning ones, especially the one where the king pops up right outside someones window with a tray of food.
@ Tim S.
“*And there is that possibility–I have encountered the Chick-Fil-A cow in a Chick-Fil-A. And while the idea of an animal urging you to eat other animals is fairly cruel, at least it makes a lot of sense”
Isn’t that what all of these commercials do, if you think about it?
I always dismissed the Burger King commercials as being targeted toward teenagers and college kids, and that’s why I don’t get them. Am I wrong about that?
The intent of the King commercials seems nothing more than BK trying to cater to the teen and twenty-something audience that devours Jackass, prank shows, youtube clips of pranks, and shows about youtube clips of pranks.
@2
That is a wonderful reference to “The Wire”…I think I would have made my name D’Angelo Barksdale though…..
@ #2, #34: “Aay-yo, lesson here, Bey?? You come at The King, you best not miss.”
The King is kind of creepy, I suppose, although my problem with those ads is not creepiness as much as I just don’t get them. #1 on my hate list now is the Geico money pile. When I realize it’s a Geico ad, I scramble to turn the channel before that stupid music starts.
Like the gekko, though. Like him even more now that he’s got a Cockney accent instead of the posh one he used to have. Although now whenever I see Harry Redknapp interviewed, I think of the Geico gekko.
My wife and I have both agreed that if we ever see the King, we will run him over with our car. He is truly creepifying and always has been. There was a commercial where some guy cut down a tree and found the king behind it. I think I would have run screaming.
Burger King’s food is horrible. Short of having a commercial where a supermodel comes out of my TV and has sex with me, no commercial can convince me to eat their revolting food.
I don’t really like the Burger King adds, but I still go to Burger King. I don’t think I do it any more than I would even if there were no adds.
Not like the old KFC Cartoon Colonel. I hated that guy and I refused to go to KFC during that campaign.
The only comercial that ever really disturbed me is the foot fungus one where the little cartoon fungus dudes are dancing around the foot. Then, without any warning, the toenail flips up to let the fungus guy jump in. It just flips straight up. The first time I saw it I actually screamed out loud. It’s worse than anything I ever saw in any horror movie.
Joe, we NEED a live Greinke blog tonight for the Sox game…just sayin’.
Joe, the point is to get people talking about Burger King – whether you find it creepy, unsettling, hilarious, or anything else, they just want you talking about BK. I think it’s working.
Steve, the goal is to get people to buy BK products. Research is clear, getting people to recall the ad, or to talk about it, does not necessarily increase sales.
Saying it’s about talking about BK, or recalling the ad, is like saying that wins is the best measure of a pitcher’s worth….
But, advertising people are just like old time baseball people, they were once told that recall and talk is important, so they still believe it.
@Mike in MN
You are so correct.
Corporate managers and ad agencies rank right up there with old-school baseball people in terms of narrow-mindedness, stubbornness, and anti-intellectual bias.
That said, I don’t know whether the ads work or not. I think they’re kind of funny…but they also haven’t persuaded me to eat at Burger King.
Until I saw the words gekko and Geico in print here, I never realized the connection. I guess I’d never thought about what kind of lizard that was. And I thought that was an Australian accent.
Without a doubt, the strangest thing Burger King ever did was the subservient chicken website. It used to be unbranded, but now has the Burger King name on it. VERY weird.
http://www.bk.com/en/us/campaigns/subservient-chicken.html
Creepy Kings: I’m creeped out as well. What were they thinking!!! Even without the stupid commercial, the “King” alone is creepy looking. Makes me NOT want to stop at Burger King…
The King stay the King.
The King is creepy, but how about the Jack-In-The-Box guy? The commercial where he is laying in bed with his wife (a real girl!) and turns the light out and his eyes are glowing! AHHHHHHHHHHH!
The Burger King marketing department and the Old Spice marketing department never disappoint. I’m a vegetarian and as such hardly ever eat fast food, but I have a higher opinion of Burger King on a personal level than Wendy’s and a much much higher opinion of BK than McDonalds because the BK commercials make me laugh and the McDonalds commercials insult my intelligence.
http://roflrazzi.com/2009/05/27/celebrity-pictures-burger-king-his-turn/
Proof positive that the King is to be feared. Sorry everyone, I just had to direct your attention to it.
So john, are you saying that your intelligence lies somewhere between Mcdonalds ads and BK ads? J/k of course though they both insult (well, anger) my intelligence
It’s good to be the king (nuzzles head between large breasts).
@ no. 9, Jim:
Robert Chambers reference! Art Deco. Very nice.
I work in ad sales for a video website, and a couple of our sales people had a meeting with Burger King’s ad agency. Long story short, they said they were basically the most jaded agency execs they’ve ever met, and their response to everything was, “That’s nice, but we’ve done that before. What’s something new?”
So, in other words, I think the idea for the King commercials is that they’re just constantly searching for something more and more bizarre.
He sure could play D, though…didn’t he pick off a Drew Bledsoe pass? OK, that’s not that hard to do….
I am an ad guy. You guys crack me up.
@e4–you were not watching a pilot; you were watching a clutter reel. The only purpose was to test ads that played during the “pilot.”
The King ads are effective because they are memorable and differentiate BK from other burger stores.
Does anyone remember the Burger King commercial Darius Rucker was in? He had on some rhinestone cowboy suit and hat. The whole commercial reminded me of an acid influenced Beatles movie.
@JJ
But if they are memorable in a negative way and if they differentiate BK in a way that is negative or not meaningful to consumers, then that’s not an effective ad.
@45: that subservient chicken thing is at least as creepy as the king. It (obviously, purposefully) has the look and feel of a hostage held in an unidentifiable room being told to do things to amuse its captors. I’m not sure how that would make someone want to go get a BK chicken sandwich.
I used to almost like BK chicken sandwiches. but between hostage chicken and the creepy King (seriously, creepy creepy king) I haven’t been in years. on purpose. And when my friends suggest it, I insist we go somewhere else. The food is just not good enough (or good, even) to overcome the creep factor.
@56: so you’re saying, based on the overwhelming consensus here anyway, that the purpose of the people making the ads is to make sure people stay the hell away from BK? Because, yes, they have clearly differentiated themselves from other burger places, but I really don’t think it’s in the way the BK people themselves wanted.
But the BK spots are meaningful to their consumers…and sometimes differentiating yourself is as simple as looking/feeling different than the competition. An important distinction in the cluttered world of selling burgers.
No Billy Paultz references?
So if an ad causes us to remember it, it’s effective.
But if we remember it because we hate it so much that we absolutely refuse to ever buy the product, is it still considered effective?
@ JJ
“The King ads are effective because they are memorable and differentiate BK from other burger stores.”
Poor logic. Under that theory, the best campaign possible would be having a 10 year old girl being rapped and killed by the creepy clown. You will never forget it; therefore it must be effective, correct?
No, of course it wouldn’t be because so many people would be turned off from the product without having to ever get near a location. Creating an ad which will keep people from your product, memorable or not, does nothing but keep people from your product in the end. When you offend people, you are way down the wrong path. When you are advertising for a fast food chain, you are not creating art – you are trying to boost sales. That seems to have been lost when it comes to the Burger King campaigns in question.
Fantastic advertising doesn’t even mean more sales itself. Take one of the best advertising campaigns of the last 15 years for instance. During the Taco Bell Chihuahua run, the company experienced its toughest times with sales often dropping on a quarterly basis. Now, this ad campaign did alienate the Hispanic community to some extent, but overall it was a huge success creating a pop-culture icon you could hardly escape. Yet can you imagine the backlash felt if the commercials were simultaneously driving people away?
The best possible add campaigns come in the non-offensive ones which showcase your product, not bells of whistles which do everything but. Show people what you sell and they may actually decide they want to try it – this is building a client base. Turn possible clients away with commercials they find offensive, that do not showcase your product at all, and you are digging yourself a hole. A person is more likely to try something they have never heard of then buy a product after an ad has upset them.
i am pretty sure the ads are pointing out that bk is now open until 2am; and that you shouldnt go to sleep before you eat a burger.
These ads don’t even phase me…I’m not sure what that says about me personally.
I was never really a fan of burger king until I stopped in at one outside of Princeton on a road trip and somehow got into a conversation with WWII vet who was a medic for the marines and then became a chemical engineer. This old guy was the single coolest stranger I’d ever met and I stayed there three hours talking with him. Now I’m compelled to swing by my local BK and harass elderly people… I’m not really sure what that says about me personally either.
Joe,
I totally remember the Waltons “Poltegeist” episode. If I remember correctly it was towards the end of the series (early 80’s) featuring the youngest daughter Elizabeth.
What I always thought was bizarre was that an episode like that was so out of place in a so called “family drama” about a family living through “The Depression and WW2.”
I happen to love the King — and think the commercials are brilliant, if for no other reason than they are memorable. My favorite: When the King was standing behind Drew Rosenhaus, pointing (and of course smiling) during the mock TO press conference.
That said, I will never, ever eat at Burger King. I eat other fast food. Just can’t stand BK. And no amount of memorable commercials will make me like it.
Which brings me to a bigger point — a project that Malcolm Gladwell would enjoy.
There ought to be an inversely proportionate scale for the quality of commercials vs. the quality of the products. For example:
BK = best commercials, worst product.
AT&T webbooks (Bill Kurtis and various athletes) = decent commercials, bad product.
Gillette Fusion (Tiger Woods, Federer, Jeter, etc.) = horrible commercial, good product
Subway = decent commercials, decent product
Old Spice (man commercials) = Great commercial, horrible product.
Dear Gawd do I hate the Burger King King. If those commercials were inane, it would be an improvement. It’s a shame, really, because I like their food better than McDonald’s or Wendy’s. (Square burgers? Abomination.) Provided, of course, that real food isn’t available.
Yup, that John Boy was one scarry dude.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned the similarities between the King and the Jack in the Box mascot. Big plastic heads? I think Jack had that idea first. Maybe I’m wrong, but the BK ads seem rather bankrupt when it comes to original content.
Mr. Posnanski,
David Foster Wallace answered your question in an essay called “e unibus pluram and us fiction.” I laughed really hard at your deconstruction of the snuggie ad. And I think the same basic mechanism is at play here. The ads are so bizarre that we can’t take them at face value. With the snuggie, we laugh at the ad. with BK, we’re in on the joke. And being in on the joke makes us identify with the brand.
The creepy king, at first, was just a mascot to which most people reacted by thinking “that’s vaguely creepy.” The joke has been cashed in by now, but we still have this sense of being in on the joke, and enjoying it ironically.
So you wear a snuggie to a book signing, not because its actually hip or functional, but because its ironic. Whats not ironic is that you (and I) actually paid 15 bucks for the damn thing.