Check out this AdAge article about Burger King's latest online marketing effort: Coq Roq. It's billed as the follow-up to Subservient Chicken (hello, why is everyone forgetting my personal favorite Burger King online marketing avatar Dr. Angus? I just love the way he pronounces pleasure as play-sure and bellows "way to go" for no reason whatsoever with alarming frequency).
So there are a couple of things of note here (it seems to this humble blogger).
First, the stench of manufactured (vs. spontaneous) buzz is overwhelming. Apparently there were "naughty bits" in the site that have now been removed (despite a curious lack of calls from the morally outraged?), but frankly it's not that naughty (what's left, I mean). Have ya caught the latest MTV special or even Entertainment Tonight? This is ultra tame in comparison to what you can see in pop culture during prime time.
Second, the terribly obvious product placement in the music videos section message board
absolutely kills it for me. Who caters a rock-n-roll party with chicken fries? Profound lack of credibility. Plus, the fries look gross. The band frankly looks more appetizing.
Third, when you try to get to the message boards section, you can't - but you do get a message saying the message boards aren't available due to overwhelming usage or something like that. Having been turned off soundly by the product placement, my reaction to this was - gimme a break, your site is just down and you're spinning me into thinking it's because your idea is so wildly successful.
Fourth, why isn't there more interactivity? Why can't you turn the characters into messengers (like Dr. Angus) and send their vitriol to friends (or enemies)? There's no way to interact with the site aside from downloading ring tones (which I acknowledge is "all the rage with the kids these days") - or post on the (once the phantom outage is addressed).
Fifth, there's no obvious viral element (do the message boards count? I can't tell, they're not working). Shouldn't BK be getting people to share this with their peeps? Maybe just sending around a URL is how it's done today and that's enough.
Comments, possums?
It's not as funny as subservient chicken, but it is still an attempt at being humorous and not taking yourself too seriously. So i don't expect it to have a strong negative impact. On the other hand, it feels quite manufactured, so i don't expect it will be much of a hit either. At least those guys over at burger king are trying, other advertisers are slow to cotton on to the viral bandwagon....
Posted by: Simon Pearce | July 27, 2005 at 01:33 PM