The Competition as the Butt of Your Jokes

Commercials today are increasingly full of put-down humor. Moronic spouses, idiot salesmen, jerk co-workers, and stupid friends are stock figures in advertising culture. Not to mention how today’s sponsors feel free to ruthlessly portray the competition.

The thought comes to mind when one considers the Jack in the Box launch of its 100 percent Sirloin Burger. The television ads backing the launch ridiculed the Angus burgers offered by several Jack competitors. How did they do it? By posing the question as to just where on a cow the “Angus” is located. Some found this sophomoric wordplay hysterical while others, such as CKE CEO Andrew Pudzer, who filed a defamation lawsuit, did not.

While the ethics of a put-down approach are clearly open to debate, the real issue here is how does this sort of thing work as positioning? Is quality merely a function of your competitors’ shortcomings? Is your own customer a dork if he occasionally eats a burger at Hardee’s or Burger King? In this case, did Jack in the Box unintentionally forge its own link to the Angus burger in the minds of distracted customers?

Or is it just a cool stroke of fortune when you make a rival so angry that the ensuing commotion keeps your new product in the news far beyond the ad cycle?

Burger King and Time

In December ’07, Burger King celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Whopper! As everyone in our industry must be well aware, the key marketing component of this celebration was the brilliant Whopper Freak Out campaign, developed by BK agency Crispin, Porter + Bogusky. Via a series of television ads and in a compelling seven-minute on-line video with its own Web site, a parade of real BK customers were captured in states of profound disappointment, disbelief, and outrage as they were told that Burger King no longer carried the Whopper.

Now, as one of those rapidly graying individuals who are not fans of the chain’s current mascot, the encephalitic king with the ossified nightmare smile, I have to admit that the hero moment of those commercials—when the king comes out of the back with a Whopper on a platter—was a great use of the freaky monarch. Here was an inspired, multigenerational moment in which an icon invented for the coveted youth demographic was used to celebrate the fervor in customers who have been loyal to Burger King for the greater part of the past five decades.

Let’s hear it for respect and long-term relationship building. Oh yeah, and a 27 percent quarterly sales increase.

Flipping Your Wig

The issues were similar to those at Burger King, but for Wendy’s apparently less effectively resolved. The chain’s edgy “Red Wig” campaign, in which a variety of spokespersons in Wendy’s wigs used far-fetched situations to implore quality-seeking burger lovers to break from the crowd, was hailed at its launch as appealing to a younger demographic. But the campaign met a premature end as sales did not improve in its wake.

Certainly part of the campaign’s quick dumping was a cultural clash within Wendy’s itself. Insiders, including family members and franchisees, were appalled by the tree-kicking, helium-huffing scenarios. Thus the chain, whose “old-fashioned” brand image was built on the back of the iconic Dave Thomas, launched a series of more conservative pitches (“It’s waaaay better than fast food.”) early in 2008.

Assuredly, the honoring of company culture might be a road to riches, as is apparent in the previously described Burger King campaign. But only if a meaningful link is also forged to the contemporary consumer. The jury is still out at Wendy’s, but it’s likely not “waaaay better” just yet.