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.

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.

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.”

“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.

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?