Why McDonald's couldn't accept Burger King's peace offering #McWhopper

I wrote early yesterday about Burger King's brilliant PR coup for Peace One Day: A challenge to arch(es) rival McDonald's to build a combination of their two classic burgers as a symbol for peace.

The ploy worked, not just because it picked up endless press, but because the response from McDonald's was cold and patronizing.

But while the wording of the response was a PR failure, there are several reasons that McDonald's basically had to turn BK down.


1. When you're #1, you don't acknowledge competition

McDonald's has been faltering lately, but they still own the category of fast food burgers. By making this proposal to the Golden Arches, Burger King was putting the two brands of equal footing. This would be unacceptable to the traditional top dog brand strategy, which is to not acknowledge the competition. There might be some exceptions, but in general McDonald's expresses its #1 status by pretending it has no competitors, just as Coke doesn't talk about Pepsi. It's up to the competitors to take down the kind of the hill.


2. The McWhopper makes one seem better than the other.

Watch this video from the campaign microsite:

Note the subtleties. BK didn't call the Big Mac/Whopper blend the "Big Whopper." That's because the very name Whopper is a reminder that the burger, introduced in 1957 (10 years before the Big Mac) is about "bigger."

Now look at the proposed burger:

The Big Mac upper half is dwarfed by the Whopper bottom half. This is a shot at the Big Mac brand.

Now, look at how the ingredients are described:

By using only one of the "two all beef patties" and 2/3 of the 3-layer bun, they almost yell out Wendy's old line of "Where's The Beef?" The Whopper ingredients, however, focus on fresh toppings and "flame grilled" patty.


3. Even the packaging is skewed

Who gets the most real estate on the box?

4. There's already been a "McWhopper" 

Thirty years ago, McDonald's genuinely tried to imitate the Whopper with the utter failure of the McDLT.

I was only 15 at the time, but I distinctly recall referring to the obvious imitation as a "McWhopper." Maybe it was just me, but even the proposed mashup burger brought back memories of that disaster.


So, to accept this challenge as stated, McDonald's would have to first acknowledge Burger King as an equal rival, then deal with the various slights that BK made against their signature brand.

The stunt, which according to AdFreak was a collaborative effort between Y&R in New Zealand, Code & Theory, Alison Brod Public Relations, The David Agency, Rock Orange, Turner Duckworth and Horizon, was pure brilliance. It was also designed to "fail" in getting McDonald's onboard. However, I'm not sure that the agencies and the BK fold could have anticipated how poorly MCDonald's would fumble the response.

Regardless, it was a huge success in building up Burger King's cool, as well as making Peace One Day a topic of conversation.

Molson asks: Are you on a "Guyet"?

Beer advertising for men has always had a certain dufus appeal. This new campaign for Molson's 67-calorie beer is no different:



From Strategy:

Jean-Yves Beaudoin, assistant marketing manager, Molson Coors, says that the campaign is different for the brand because it’s aimed more at a mindset and a lifestyle than a demographic. 

“‘Guyet’ is a way of life.  It’s not about indulging in crappy food all the time, it’s about exercising properly so you can rationalize eating things you love, like burgers with bacon,” he says of the insight behind the campaign.

Which is the way lots of us live, but why brand it just for men? Lots of women I know like burgers and beer, and still try to balance their intake with healthy activity.

The obvious answer is that it's not an easy sell to get guy's guys to be seen drinking lower-calorie beer. At least, that's how I deconstruct the challenge given to the creative team at Rethink.

The key line: "This isn't some diet — and this isn't some diet beer"

Presumably, they have research to show that the men they want to sell to don't want to admit to being on a "diet" or drinking "light beer". Instead, they exercise hard and eat hearty, while drinking a lower-cal beer that in no way compromises their masculinity.

Pretty strategic advertising, actually. Even if it doesn't have the most progressive take on gender.

Can you shame a pregnant woman into quitting smoking?

It's a beautifully-executed ad, by Kelliher Samets Volk for the Vermont Department of Public Health (via Adrants).

It's also an approach that has been done before, by Different for the NHS:

Original or not, however, I don't think it will make a damn bit of difference.

All too often, public social marketing campaigns are based on the assumption that "if only those people knew that what they were doing is harmful, they'd stop."

I'll put it out there that most people who have a drug problem know it is harmful to them, and possibly to others. I doubt many smokers, problem drinkers, or street and prescription drug abusers are so deluded as to think they are doing no harm. But they are addicted, and addiction overrules self preservation. If it didn't we wouldn't have the problems we do.

This ad, as beautiful as it is, only serves to add to the public shaming of pregnant women who smoke by the general public. But shame is not a great motivator to change, especially when you have already made the shamed one an outcast.

The ads above are subtle, but it is part of a train of thought that includes these:

Via Wordpress

Via Wordpress

Via Google

Via DeviantArt

Via HazellCottrell

Via Coloribus

And then there's this:

I want to make it clear that I don't want women to smoke while pregnant. My problem with the prevailing attitude among social marketers is the insistence that you can shame and blame people with drug problems into behavioural change.

The other issue I have is how much these campaigns can take on the visual vocabulary of the anti-abortion movement:

Via World Health Organisation

With that approach comes the implicit message that a pregnant women's body does not belong to her, it belongs to society at large. And that is not okay.

Pregnant women who smoke need encouragement and help to quit, without being judged or frightened.   They need our support and understanding, not our looks of disdain. When is someone going to stop treating addicts like "rational consumers" of social policy, and actually take this issue on from a harm reduction point of view?

I'm ready whenever you are.

This could be the worst branded social media idea ever

Meet Flynt, KLM's idea of social media engagement.


The "Very Interactive Puppet" was launched as a Facebook account back in September. KLM went so far as to develop a backstory in the timeline.

I'm sure somebody thought it was a great idea for the Dutch airline to communicate with Facebook users via a puppet. I do not.


As the satirical minds at Condescending Corporate Brand Page put it:

KLM return to us like an old social media friend that smells of bad engagement attempts and desperation...

I recently wrote a post on Acart's Change Marketing blog about a great customer service experience I had with an anonymous Air Canada social media administrator. What impressed me was not any silly branded "engagement" they did, but rather that there was a real person monitoring the page, ready to assist customers with the information they needed.

Believe it or not, such practical engagement is pretty rare in the corporate social media world. Marketers  keep trying to bring advertising thinking to social media platforms. Rather than seeing them as  communication channels that allow people to get and share information, they try to hijack the conversation with branded content and incessant pleas for likes and shares.

But this is not primetime television. Following brands online is always a choice. The only way you can interrupt people's online experience is by ponying up the cash for pop ups or pre-rolls on mainstream sites. Waste their time when they're with you by choice, and you're asking for trouble.

The problem with the KLM puppet account is that it does just that. It almost seems like a parody of the most overwrought branded social media out there. Somebody invested time and money into creating a character who you are supposed to care about. But what this mascot approach really says to me is that KLM isn't taking customer engagement seriously.

Even the puppet seems to know this. The "about" page includes the line, "KLM’s social media editorial board sees me as a communication tool, which feels a little uncomfortable, but okay."

I'm with you, Flynt. Nobody likes to be a treated like a tool by corporate social media.

Amnesty ad compares arms trade to tsunami disasters

(Cross-posted at Osocio)


Oh, dear. Remember this fiasco?

Created by DDB Brazil for WWF Brazil, it ignited a firestorm of protest, which WWF's international office first disavowed, then admitted may have been the approved regionally. On this year's September 11th anniversary, Buzzfeed's Copyranter named it #1 in his list of "The Five Worst 9/11 Exploitation Ads".

You could say that it simply tells an inconvenient truth about inconsistent cultural attitudes towards tragedy and death. But that point would be made at the expense of causing further hurt to the families of the World Trade Centre attack, as well as to those deeply affected by it.

Now, strangely, the 2005 tsunami tragedy that is being exploited to make a point about war and the arms trade:

The ad is by TBWA, Paris, for Amnesty International.


This brings the saga of over-produced, tragedy-exploiting ads full circle: "an epic and tragic natural disaster killed more people than an infamous terrorist act, but the arms trade is even worse."

(Admittedly, it could also be a reference to the more recent Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.)

Once again, creatives go for maximum impact to make one message of human loss at the cost of trivializing another. This kind of trade-off is a devil's bargain, in my opinion. It's all bad. You don't need to get into a comparison of which is worse. From my perspective this looks like lazy strategy and the elaborate (yet derivative) execution is blatant award-bait.

And I say this as a member of Amnesty. You can do better than this. You often do.


Tip via Ads of the World

"Ici, c'est Pepsi"

Here, it's Pepsi!

Vincent just sent me this funny Pepsi ad from Quebec, in which a gang of French Canadian stereotypes attack an American tourist stereotype for daring to drink Coke.



Pepsi has long played the market in Quebec very differently than the "rest of Canada" because the soft drink has a special relationship with the province. It far outsells Coke there now, due to a its dedication to homegrown Quebec-only campaigns that celebrate their unique culture and sense of humour. This relationship is so tight and well-known that, when I was a kid, "Pepsi" was also a derogatory term for our francophone neighbours to the east and north.

The new ad is pretty funny even to this anglo. Anyone have credits?

"Priceless" - Australian style

Celine shared this recent Master Card ad from Australia:



The comically "ideal" man thing has been done to death, since Old Spice, but this one is pretty funny. I'm not sure how threatened you'd really need to feel by such a douche, but nonetheless the product benefit is single-minded and front and centre. And the brand is pared down to its punchline.

Moral of the story: You can have an entertaining spot that is bang on strategy. Nice work.

Who was the agency?

The Agency of the Future

I've been daydreaming lately about what the future of my industry will look like.

Speculation is always laughable when you look back at it, but when you're looking forward it's still fun to imagine: What will the ad agency of 2020 be?

This is particularly interesting to me, because I think the seeds of the new species were planted more than 10 years ago, when stories started circulating about agencies abandoning the office structure for a virtual workplace of cell phones, laptops, and video conferencing. (My boss at the time, Bob Corrall at The Bytown Group, was seriously considering following suit.)

It didn't happen. But I don't think it's because the concept was wrong. Rather, the time was. Technology has a habit of outpacing people's ability to absorb change. People then (and to a large extent, now) still favoured face-to-face meetings over naked text or voice — or even the weird delays and wandering eyes of primitive Internet video conferencing.

Fast-forward to the new, and the fundamentals of the technology haven't changed – only improved. The real revolution has been a cultural one, as older people now cling to their PDAs as they once did to their cigarettes, and younger people live in a world where text messaging someone sitting next to you is not considered odd.

So, why do we still come to the office? Well, telecommuting is steadily rising where permitted. But once again cultural change moves slowly. Business owners like to see their workers at work. And I have to admit that there are some situations — like strategic or creative brainstorming — where you really need human interaction to be efficient.

So my vision of the agency of the future is less office, and more meeting place. It's where teams agree to get together to hash out ideas, and where the ideas get presented to clients. But deskwork? I think it will be for the home office.

And who will do this work? With the decline of massive mainstream media channels, traditional advertising is seen to be failing. I don't believe advertising is dead at all. It just needs to keep up.

For over 50 years, advertising has been driven by massive spending on mass media. The old rule of thumb for ad budgets is 20% for creative and production versus 80% for the media buy. You needed it if you were even going to be seen in primetime.

Well, it's time to think differently. Not only online and social media, but also the million-channel universe, video on demand and timeshifting, have made audiences much harder to find. To borrow a colleague's metaphor for attempted Facebook hookups, it's gone from machine-gunning a message to sharpshooting it.

Sure, there are still media placements to be bought, but they'll be way more targetted and economical — smart online ads and specialty media. What will be needed instead is a big investment in research, strategy, content and a good blend of paid/earned media planning... with maybe 20% left over for actually buying space.

Media departments will change. I see them becoming a hybrid of market research, media planning, and public/media relations. The emphasis will be on defining, finding, and reaching highly-targeted groups, rather than making massive buys. They do the intellectual legwork now. They just need to get paid what it's really worth, since commissions will dry up.

The good news for creatives is that when you have to earn people's attention (rather than buying it) great ideas will still win out. But rather than the old-school Copywriter/Art Director team, I see the next generation of Creatives being more like a sitcom writing team with the ability to design, lay out, and code their own work. Ad schools are already turning out multidisciplinarian graduates. Once we old folk can embrace a blurring of creative and executional roles, the world will be theirs.

I also see these future teams as independent units, maybe even contractors or hired guns. Right now, many teams specialize in specific brands or industries, as do agencies. I see these future teams specializing in target markets, able to speak to them credibly on any subject, and work for any agency or brand. They could be located anywhere, but would have to share a meta-culture with the audience. And agewise, probably a few years older than them so that they are insightful yet self-aware and capable of cultural leadership. (My anecdote on this is always that The Beatles were not technically Baby Boomers, but U2 are.)

Understanding of the brands and industries will be the job of Client Services, as always. But I see them being much more in the role of a Producer in the TV broadcast world, setting the course, lining up the players, performing project management miracles, and internalizing the creative product that they can present it to clients and defend it as their own. (This is a big part of my virtual office, which would mean Client Services people could operate independently in major markets for face-to-face meetings, and deal remotely with far-flung Creative Teams.)

Will this all happen? And when? I have no idea. But things have to change. This isn't all about social media, either. Media come and go, and the ones that work just work. I was reminded of this as I walked to Acart this morning — rather than driving a flying car or being sucked through a pneumatic tube — and saw rows of one of the oldest ad media, hoarding posters, catching my attention the way they always will.



Technology doesn't change us. It just opens up opportunities. It's up to us to take advantages of the right ones — at the right time, and in the right place.