Why Burger King Gave up on the Whopper
Burger King has spent the last 65 years tirelessly promoting the hell out of its iconic hero - flame-grilled, freshly made, big and hearty - the Whopper. The fast food chain has gone through pretty much any and all iterations of its signature burger’s possible advertising strategies. From retro posters at the very dawn of the brand and the Whopper’s creation in 1957, up until today, where we’ve seen its AI version in the digital era.
The fact of the matter is that the Whopper is iconic in and of itself - older than the Big Mac by more than ten years, with the original price of 37 cents and named after its whooping size, the sandwich took America’s burger market, and the subsequent burger markets abroad, by storm. “We have been the home of the Whopper for so many years. It symbolises what we stand for at Burger King,” said Soco Núñez de Cela, brand and communications director at BK, and Suzi Hoy, senior brand manager at BK.
Regardless of that, Burger King UK has decided to finally give up on it this month.
While you will still be able to indulge in the deliciousness of flame-grilled beef and freshly cut veggies, the brand has decided to take its eyes away from its signature dish and towards something that has been hiding in plain sight right behind the Whopper - the Chicken Royale. Turns out, after a bit of research, Burger King found out that the Chicken Royale is not only second in sales right after the Whopper but is also the nation’s most iconic chicken burger.
The nearly cult followers of the Chicken Royale have remained unfazed by the 65-year-long love letter the brand has written to the Whopper and are still choosing it. Through decades of Whopper ads - from print and OOH to AI - the nation marches right towards the Chicken Royale. So, it was time for Burger King to face that truth and the irony that came with it.
“It has become one of our hero products despite the fact that we have never advertised it,” say Soco and Suzi. “We ran social listening research and found that the Royale is not only a favourite on the menu but also the nation’s favourite chicken burger - we thought a massive opportunity had revealed itself in the UK. A major source for our research were definitely our restaurant teams who reported the success of the sale of the Royale repeatedly.” This newly-arised opportunity was to be seized with the help of BBH, who have also spent the last five years of the 65-year saga building around the Whopper.
“The creative intention for this campaign was going to be to subvert the Whopper with this truth: Despite 65 years of trying with it, so many people persistently prefer the Chicken Royale,” say Oliver Short and Jennifer Ashton, copywriter and art director at BBH.
The mission was to undercut Burger King’s pride and joy - something which only the brand itself could really do. In the briefing, the brand was quite frank: “The Chicken Royale is one of our best selling products, right behind the Whopper, despite not having been promoted for decades,” they told BBH. So, the agency did some research of its own - and the findings added up. It soared above others with 53% ‘craveability’ versus KFC’s fillet burger at 27% and the McDonald’s iterations at 20%. Keywords that popped up during the social media research were ‘insane’, ‘delicious’ and ‘delight’.
With that as a jumping point and a true need from both BBH and Burger King to seize the moment, they teamed up with Riff Raff’s Ed Kaye and Alex Mavor, better known as The Sacred Egg, to create arguably one of the most ingenious double ad in the history of the brand. The film dubbed ‘We Give Up’ tracks behind our main character on his way to Burger King. As he’s walking through the city, we see him and his surroundings evolve through the decades - from the ‘60s, through to the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s and up to modern day.
While clothes and tech transforms, and we see the city landscapes energetically swap with the next, one thing stays the same - everything is covered in Whopper ads. Representing Burger King’s restless dedication to building their (and our) world around the beef burger, we see the ads grow bigger and better, with everything slowly being covered by Whoppers.
Once the main character finally reaches the Burger King joint, he walks up confidently to the till and asks for a… Chicken Royale. The disappointed employee becomes the face of defeat as the single piece of copy appears on our screen: ‘We Give Up’.
Oliver and Jennifer explain that the copywriting of the initial idea was pretty simple - initially the phrase was ‘After 65 years of trying, we give up’. They held onto the core of the phrase and at one point it ended up in the final film. “As we crafted the scene, the ‘trying’ part of the sentence became more ‘see’ than ‘say’,” they explain. “It was clear the Whopper had been trying to vie for the protagonist’s attention. So, in the end, we loved the simplicity and the attitude of ‘We give up’.”
Soco and Suzi agree the line was perfect as it emanates Burger King’s self-deprecating British tone that audiences know and love. “As a brand, we try not to take ourselves too seriously like this line does,” they say. “It is lighthearted with a simple, clear message, which is why it works so well.”
For the walk through of the eras of Whopper advertising, both BBH and Burger King had to dig through the brand’s archives to find their materials. “We looked at the original ads from over the last 65 years and used them to inform each of the eras in our ad. Carrying us through the Whopper’s entire advertising history,” say Oliver and Jen. Soco and Suzi admit that the initial idea was to really focus on the Royale, but it would’ve been even better if the Whopper got mentioned. While they thought that’s a difficult ask, BBH came up with an idea that fits both roles - addressing the irony of the situation and giving the well-deserved love for the Chicken Royale, while paying homage to the decades spent building the brand around the Whopper.
To coincide with the release date of the spot, Burger King gave start to the first ever Chicken Royale day - after all these years and the burger’s success, they believed the Royale deserved it. “So many people are obsessed with it, and we’re so happy that the Royale is finally getting the glory it deserves,” says Suzi.
From a production perspective, Riff Raff executed the vision perfectly, but The Sacred Egg admit that they got lucky with the locations. The one used across the ‘60s and ‘70s segment turns out to be an old cinema-turned metal worlds in Cape Town. “Nobody had shot there in years because the road in front is a major traffic thoroughfare,” Alex and Ed say. “We, of course, fell in love with it and rather than telling us that it wasn’t possible, Jon Day at Orange Films worked and worked on the council people and made it possible. This made a massive difference to the overall aesthetics of the film.”
One look at it and you can see - attention to detail has not been spared when creating ‘We Give Up’. Even the clothes are spot-on. Since this is the second period piece that The Sacred Egg have shot in Cape Town, they knew how to find some good disco clothes. “The access to both vintage shops and costume hire is very good here. The stylist this time around was Dihantus Engelbrecht, who has great taste. We didn’t really have to change anything.” In fact, the directors remember shooting the ‘60s and ‘70s scenes fondly and say it was the most fun they had on set throughout the project.
When we walk through the eras with the main character, we see different iterations of the Whopper ad - print, out of door, merch and TV. Ed and Alex say that finding the old TVs and old tech to match the decade wasn’t the hard bit - it was making it work and to actually play what you want them to. “That was partly the reason for most of the Whopper ads on the TVs to be put in post. This was partly because when we shot, we didn’t have all the rights to all the ads that featured.”
In contrast, the fly posters were made and then shot in-camera but others, like the huge billboard covering an ambiguous yellow arch on a red backdrop were added in post. The Sacred Egg found that while they had set in stone what they wanted to be added, so as to not overcrowd the film with media, when it came time to edit, they saw the opportunity to make the world even more Whopper-filled without risking the storyline. “We didn’t want to get overtly signposted, so that was tricky. We wanted it to feel seamless. Obviously some bits work better than others. The way you storyboard things is obviously the starting point of how these Whopper ads would be revealed. But when you actually film them so many more factors come into play - focus, camera, extras - that at points we had to slightly rethink.”
And about that billboard… let’s talk about the golden-arched elephant in the room. “It wasn’t really anything to do with the idea, it’s just cheeky,” says Oliver. “Burger King and McDonald’s have always poked fun at each other, so we thought why don’t we do the same in our biggest poster site on our journey. But that’s not the only McDonald’s poke. Can you spot the other? Clue: It’s in the laundrette scene…”
The main character that we follow goes through five decades in less than a minute, so it was surprising that The Sacred Egg managed to find somebody who could fit in all the costumes and seamlessly float through the scenes. They say: “It would have been easy to go for someone more comical looking. Maybe someone geekier. We also talked about going the other way around and having someone very cool - but we landed in the middle. Looking for someone who could be transformed from decade to decade well, but someone who felt more every-day. Someone who didn’t fall into those advertising casting clichés.”
Not only did the character have to have ‘that’ face, but he also needed to perform his unawareness of all the Whoppers around him as he marched towards his Chicken Royale - “going about his business oblivious to the messaging around him.”
Challenge-wise, The Sacred Egg found different things tricky to BBH. Oliver and Jennifer explain that the funniest and hardest bit of the project was actually the music. “Composing a track from scratch was a risk for us, one that caused plenty of disagreements along the way, but we feel it paid off.”
At the early stages they knew they wanted to create a ‘haunting jingle’ that was fresh but also reminiscent of the iconic jingles from old-timey Whopper ads. “But, we didn’t realise how much the track would evolve and how important it would become to transport you from era to era. Now the film is out in the world, the music is the thing that sticks in people’s heads, so we’re proud of that.”
So, there you have it - Burger King took us on an epic journey through decades of painful irony, hilariously summed up in a minute of overwhelming Whopper ads, to finish with what we are all craving right now. A Chicken Royale.
And with that, the teams across brand, agency and production leave us with the resounding: “We give up.”
