Did they get fries with that?

Burger King just launched a new “Whopper Virgins” ad campaign featuring its self-proclaimed “world’s purest taste test.” The test asks indigenous people from the most remote areas of places like Thailand, Romania and Greenland to compare and choose the tastier of the two: a McDonald’s Big Mac or the Burger King Whopper. And while some may say the Burger King Whopper makes for the tastiest meal, I would argue that the corporate giant’s new campaign is just plain tasteless. I will admit, the ads are clever.

But at what cost? This article by Barbara Lippert of AdWeek addresses these sentiments:

-Alisha

Burger King defiles its 'Whopper Virgins' in a tasteless new campaign
from Crispin
By BARBARA LIPPERT
Published: December 8, 2008

Crispin Porter + Bogusky might call its new "Whopper Virgins" Burger King campaign the "world's purest taste test." But really, what the agency has expertly concocted is the world's most tasteless
taste test.

You probably already know the story. "To find out about America's favorite burger, we had to leave America," says the copy at whoppervirgins.com. The site, and the culturally tone-deaf teaser spots released last week, feature documentary footage of a team trekking by snowshoe and helicopter to find remote populations -- farmers in Transylvania, the Inuit in Greenland, the Hmong tribe of Southeast Asia -- where the indigenous people are, curiously, shown wearing their native dress.

How isolated are they? The Hmong, we're told, "don't even have a word for hamburger." The handpicked "virgins" are not only given their first bites of the mass-produced Whopper sandwich, but they are also asked to ignite their own burger wars by comparing it to McDonald's Big Mac.

I've always maintained that if you really want the inside scoop on the best fast-food burger, you should ask a guy who speaks Hmong Gu Mba.

Really, what does this prove? If your palate is accustomed to local, non-processed, non-trans-fat-filled food, these Whoppers, tasty and addictive though they may be, would be mass-market weapons of intestinal destruction. It's kind of cruel. Also, in proper taste testing of pre-made food, there's so much complicated criteria -- from "mouthfeel" to bun flavor -- that this is like asking someone who's never seen a moving image to be an Emmy judge.

But BK sees a certain purity in this madness. Russ Klein, president of global marketing strategy and innovation, says in the press release: "During a time when consumers are craving it most, honesty and transparency are the heart and soul of this campaign. By embarking on a voyage of this magnitude that held no guarantees and left us open to vulnerabilities, we took a leap of faith that our signature product would win people over at first bite."

See, that's where they get in trouble -- claiming it's transparent. Attention-getting, yes. Diabolically clever, uh-huh. But it's advertising, and there's nothing honest about it.

To begin with, taste tests are great as media magnets and marketing moves, but they're notoriously unscientific as acts of research. I remember a guy who worked on the original Pepsi Challenge telling me that the "subjects," stomping around a mall somewhere and given paper cups filled with dark fluids, most likely couldn't taste the difference between a Pepsi and some lemon Pledge. It was all in the setup.

Second, it's disingenuous. Burger King has already colonized the world with Whoppers -- and carefully considered how to reach every inch of the globe. Yet this campaign pretends as though it hasn't. (It's even an established part of business for franchisees abroad to cater to local tastes -- adding an egg and onions to Whoppers in Israel, for example, or offering beetroot instead of mayo in Australia, and on and on.)

But even more manipulative is that this taste test is presented as a "documentary." That suggests some kind of journalistic endeavor that seeks to unmask hypocrisy or combat ignorance -- neither of which this does. The teasers and early Web videos merely play up the "noble savages" angle -- the virgins who must be Whopperized.

Stacy Peralta, who has made award-winning documentaries, from the skateboarding film Dogtown and Z-Boys to his latest, about gang strife in L.A., has done a brilliant job with the photography here. The National Geographic-caliber pictures of the countryside and the locals in their funny hats are gorgeous. The problem is that the obvious power and beauty of the shots just underscores the frivolity of the underlying strategy of spending millions of dollars in production to deliver burgers to indigenous peoples. (The Hmong are shown being transported to an actual BK restaurant, but how did they get the burgers to the remote locations in Greenland and Romania? We're talking thousand-dollar burgers at the least.)

"Whopper Freakout" was honest and genius because it showed that the absence of the Whopper caused visceral outpourings of grief and loss among passionate customers. This is the opposite: It forces the burger on people who were innocent of its existence.

You do have to give the creative team props for figuring out a way to wrench the Whopper out if its usual context and see it in a fresh way.

My original thought was that these people would probably prefer schools and hospitals to prefab burgers. And in fact, BK has shown some sensitivity in this area. The company says it worked with local authorities after the shoots to make donations to the communities, including educational supplies and children's toys to schools in Thailand and Greenland and funds toward the restoration of a 17th-century church in Romania.

And the post-teaser payoff spots will show delicious moments of humanity, with the locals eating and smiling. So, we see that it's a small world after all.

But guess what? Every time, the virgin in question picks the Whopper! Maybe they should have assembled the testers on a mountaintop in their native garb to sing about it.

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NYT: Resolved to Keep on Marketing, Even in Tight-Fisted Times

Great piece from the Times last month on the perils of curtailing marketing programs in a down economy.

Slashing marketing dollars in an attempt to reduce spending - and in turn boost the bottom line - is more like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Imagine if FDR had eliminated the most costly government agencies in the 1930s, rather than launching the New Deal. Sure, the federal payroll would have decreased, but those cuts would not have created one new job and would have done nothing to boost consumer spending.

Now is the time for companies to take a page from Roosevelt's playbook by priming the marketing pump. I understand the need for reducing expenses, but a down economy is no time to go dark. If anything, it's an ideal opportunity for standing out from the crowd while the competition panics.

-Aaron





Resolved to Keep on Marketing, Even in Tight-Fisted Times
By STUART ELLIOTT
Published: October 19, 2008

ATTENDEES of a big annual conference for marketers, held here last week, could have been forgiven for believing they had stumbled into a symposium for scholars of American history in the 1930s.

These are some of the words and phrases heard during the conference, the 98th annual meeting of the Association of National Advertisers: “financial crisis,” “scary,” “foreclosure,” “economic crisis,” “difficult times,” “the chaotic financial markets,” “devastating,” “under siege” and “unprecedented.”

There were even references to “Happy Days Are Here Again,” which became the unofficial theme song of those who fought to forestall the effects of the Great Depression, and to “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” the encouraging words of Franklin D. Roosevelt during his first inaugural address, in 1933.

“The consumer is sitting at the bottom of a bunker with his head in his hands, wondering if it’s safe to come out,” Jez Frampton, global chief executive at Interbrand, an Omnicom Group agency specializing in corporate and brand identity, said during a general session of the conference.

“It’s up to us to stimulate demand in the marketplace again,” he added.

Whether the members of the association — 400 companies that together spend an estimated $100 billion a year on advertising and other forms of marketing — are willing to stick to the spending plans they made “before the globe went mad,” as Mr. Frampton put it, is a crucial question.

If marketers cut budgets, that could intensify the recent sharp downturn in consumer spending. Conversely, by maintaining — or increasing — spending levels, they just might shorten the length of whatever recession might be coming (if it is not already here).

“Look, everyone is going to want to cut, but no one wants to be first to say it in public,” said one attendee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because his company has not completed its planning for 2009.

“That’s especially true given that we still have some time before Christmas,” the attendee said, referring to the importance of the holiday shopping season for marketers and retailers. “Anyone who says anything now could go down as the Grinch who stole Christmas.”

The closest any speaker came to tipping his or her hand was Anne Saunders, brand and advertising executive at Bank of America.

“We aren’t done planning ’09 yet,” Ms. Saunders said, so “we’re not concluding at the moment that we would necessarily cut” spending.

If a decision is reached to make cuts, “we don’t expect to see a substantial cut,” she added, because “it would be a mistake to say you don’t need to continue to tend your brand, even in a challenging market like this.”

Other speakers made the same point, in more emphatic and colorful language. “It’s incredibly important to be risk-takers in the economic climate we’re in,” said Michael Mendenhall, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Hewlett-Packard, when “people have a tendency to pull back.”

“In economic times like these, you don’t hunker down and go in the bunker,” he added. Rebecca Saeger, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at the Charles Schwab Corporation, quoted Mr. Mendenhall approvingly in her remarks and added: “Let’s all go for growth. Let’s see this as an opportunity.”

Increasing sales and profits has “never been more important,” said Ms. Saeger, who was elected during the conference as the chairwoman of the association for 2008-10. “There has never been a more crystal-clear realization of why you need a strong brand.”

Joseph V. Tripodi, chief marketing and commercial officer at the Coca-Cola Company — whose Coca-Cola brand is the strongest in the world, according to a new survey by Interbrand — evoked imagery from the Great Depression.

“Don’t go to the ledge,” Mr. Tripodi said. “Don’t let the urgent overwhelm the important.”

“It’s very easy now to panic, and we cannot panic,” he added. “Invest in your brands now, especially in these dry times. The easiest thing is to shut down, and that’s the worst thing.”

James R. Stengel, who is retiring from his post as global marketing officer at Procter & Gamble, was asked whether consumers seeking to save money might be tempted to switch to private-label products from brand names. That would mean paying less attention to ads for brands — no matter how much marketers spent.

That is unlikely, Mr. Stengel replied, if marketers understand that “in these times, people are looking for the right value.”

“If we’re there for consumers when they need us,” he added, “I’m sure we’ll be fine.” Procter, the world’s largest advertiser, survived “tough times” in countries hit hard by recent economic crises, Mr. Stengel said, like Argentina and Russia. He even remarked on how Procter made it through the ’30s.

Two speakers described how the upheaval in the American economy is inspiring advertising campaigns.

“Right now, given where America is, people need to go back to the comfort of home,” said Mark Addicks, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at General Mills So a new campaign for the company’s Pillsbury brand will carry the theme “Home is calling.”

A commercial that Mr. Addicks showed, by the Saatchi & Saatchi division of the Publicis Groupe, began with people from all walks of life clicking their heels together like Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” and ended with a family coming home to a meal with Pillsbury crescent rolls.

Claire Bennett, senior vice president for marketing at American Express, said the “challenging environment” gave her brand “a unique opportunity” because of its “legacy of trust and confidence.”

“We will be talking about that in the coming months,” she added, and “our own card members can speak for us.”

The entreaties of the speakers may have influenced the estimated 1,200 attendees at the conference, based on results of instant polls during two general sessions.

Asked about immediate plans, 33 percent of respondents said they would maintain the level of their marketing spending, 33 percent said they would reduce spending and 27 percent said they would spend more. (The rest were unsure.)

And when asked about 2009 compared with 2008, the largest number of respondents, 28 percent, predicted stability, followed by 26 percent who forecast spending increases of more than 10 percent. Nineteen percent predicted decreases of more than 10 percent, 14 percent predicted decreases of less than 10 percent, and 13 percent predicted growth of less than 10 percent.

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About our blog

Welcome to May The Schwartz Be With You, our web log (“blog,” for short) featuring news and commentary about the public relations and communications industry, the business world, and other odds and ends that we think readers might find interesting.

In conceptualizing our new website, this blog was one of our earliest priorities. We wanted to create a digital community for businesspeople, communications professionals, and members of the media. Part social experiment, part sounding board, our hope is that this blog will become an online forum for people with similar interests.

A recent survey of public relations professionals published by PRWeek, a leading publication for the PR industry, found that 67% of respondents plan on expending “much more” resources on digital marketing in the coming year. This is a predictable number given that the internet and new media are fast-becoming the mediums of choice for news consumption, social networking, and even commerce. Let’s face it: if you’re not going digital, then you’re going the way of the dinosaurs.

But here’s what’s shocking: the same survey also revealed that while 75% of PR industry CEOs use new media and social media in their personal lives on a regular basis, only 18% of them said their companies have used these mediums in communicating with their target audiences (clients, prospective clients, journalists, etc.). As a growth-oriented firm in what seems to be a backwards-looking industry, we’re bucking this trend.

Over the past year, we’ve successfully incorporated new media strategies into client campaigns, and we’re encouraging clients to embrace new, digital-based methods for reaching out to their audiences. Granted, there’s still a lot of ground to cover in this constantly-evolving sector of communications, but we feel we’re making significant progress. This blog is a big step in the right direction, so let’s get to it.

For starters, some basics: if you’re wondering where the name for our blog came from, then you’ve probably never seen the movie Spaceballs. In this comedic parody of Star Wars, actor/director/writer Mel Brooks plays a character named Yogurt (a caricature of Star Wars’ Yoda). In classic Brooks fashion, Yogurt departs each scene uttering “may the Schwartz be with you,” a nod to Yoda’s indelible line, “may the force be with you.”

Second, the bloggers revealed: Blog entries may be posted by anyone at Schwartz Media Strategies. We each have a unique outlook on various topics, and our hope is that over time, you’ll get to know us through our posts. I encourage you to interact with us and share your feedback, which leads me to…

The importance of interaction. Blogs are digital communities; without the participation of our visitors, we’re basically reducing what would otherwise be an online dialogue into a one-way conversation. Comment on our postings. Share your own opinions. Join our conversation.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let the blogging begin…

-Aaron