With 65 years of business experience in the field of widespread expansion and mass-stuffing
incredibly tasty food between bread, Burger King, the only royal chain of fast food restaurants
(Yes, we’re narrowing our eyes at you, Dairy Queen) has quite a few successes – and failures
– up its sleeve. But this time we’re only going to discuss the failures, because they’re,
well, more interesting than the successes. So put on that crown and let’s unwrap the
top 10 Burger King fails.
Burger King’s Satisfries
Differentiation in the market is key when a number of brands, both local and international,
are constantly competing on the same level as you. But for Burger King, the need to differentiate
is at an entirely new level altogether, with cutthroat competition from more popular brands
like McDonald’s (and occasionally Wendy’s), and healthier options such as Panera Bread
and Chipotle. Always attempting to stand out with its ad campaigns aimed at millennials
(claiming to understand the ‘pulse’ of the new generation), either by a lack of self-awareness
or just the desire to lure in gullible customers, Burger King also attempted to go the healthy
route: which always seems like a great irony with fast food chains. Satisfries was a dud
right from its name to its profitability. A medium-sized serving of Satisfries consisted
of 20% fewer calories than Burger King’s original fries, which, to begin with, are
usually dwarfed in taste and crispiness by their McDonald’s counterparts. Satisfries
was no exception. The ‘special’ batter used to make the Satisfries was touted to
be less absorbent of oil, but it eventually failed to draw in enough customers and was
discontinued in 75% of branches across the states. A major reason for its failure was
because a majority of Burger King’s customers simply do not buy fries from a health-conscious
standpoint. As noble an attempt as it was, it failed to satisfry its target market.
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The BK Halloween Whopper
Being second fiddle to a company that goes by the name “Mickey D’s” takes a toll
on you, and if you saw the faces of the scientists at BK labs working overtime to concoct delicious
green-poop inducing meals for your pleasure, you would agree as well. But the genius in
the lab coat that designed The Halloween Whopper in 2016 was more than just overworked, if
y’know what I mean. The Halloween Whopper is an epithet so apt that the burger appearing
in your nightmares tonight won’t even have to announce itself: you’ll already know
what it’s called. In 2018, for the newer Nightmare King, Burger King even released
a facetious 2-minute advertisement with patients being tested, electrical brain activity and
all, for nightmares after consuming a Nightmare King. The ad garnered a lukewarm response
and even the burger itself was shrugged off. But the 2016 Halloween Whopper received a
widespread dose of infamy, not as a result of the burger’s taste or appearance (A whopper
dipped in A-1 Steak sauce in sesame-seed buns that look like coal), but because it made
poop turn green. The strange variation of colors notwithstanding, tabloids hastened
to condemn the product because it was too concentrated with dye, and the product eventually
fizzled out without a bang. While the treat itself was rather tame, the trick was definitely
off-the-charts for most unsuspecting consumers the next morning.
Google Home PR Disaster for Burger King
Burger King has always tried to stay status quo. This is usually a burden for a company
that’s 65 years old with a formulaic business model, but its attempts to remain hip with
the youth requires tremendous upkeep, which Burger King usually can’t quite live up
to. This is what happened when Burger King tried
to advertise its food with Google Home, where a chirpy employee ends the ad by saying “Okay
Google, what is a Whopper Burger?” As you’d expect, pranksters and Meme magnates were
unrelenting. Since Google outsources most of its basic questions to Wikipedia, the answers
that Google brought up were ridiculous and at the same time, hilarious. A few classic
edits of the Wikipedia entry said that the Whopper contained cyanide, was “100% medium-sized
child”, or the milder "the worst hamburger product" ever. The event was a debacle not
only because of hyper 4channer intervention but Wikipedia requested the fast food giant
to issue an apology because it’s against Wikipedia policy to promote material or advertise.
A definition that was earlier the tame and not-exactly-mouth-watering “The Whopper
is the signature hamburger sold by the international fast-food restaurant chain Burger King and
its Australian franchise Hungry Jack’s” was altered days prior to the ad’s airing
to sound sumptuous in a very typical, tantalizing-fast-food way: “The Whopper is a burger, consisting
of a flame-grilled patty made with 100% beef with no preservatives or fillers, topped with
sliced tomatoes, onions, lettuce, pickles, ketchup, and mayonnaise, served on a sesame-seed
bun.” Caught red-handed and pranked by internet beasts. 0 for 2 Burger King, 0 for 2.
Burger King Gets Hacked!
There was a time, long, long ago, when the internet was called ‘ARPANET’, Satisfries
was a typo, and the Whopper was more popular than the Big Mac (as always, still debatable).
Burger King misses those times. In 2013, Burger King’s official Twitter was hacked by the
– let’s just call him what he really is – the hamburglar. That’s right, not only
is Burger King’s Twitter password apparently hackable, but the hacker went on for a good
hour having their own raunchy pomp. The hacker changed the account’s name to McDonald’s
and broadcasted that Burger King was officially purchased by McDonald’s. For the next sixty
minutes, a series of sexually-tinged innuendos followed, including pictures that disgraced
Burger King’s employees and said they ‘sniff percocets’ in bathrooms. This brash and
unrelenting barrage was halted only an hour later when Twitter officially suspended the
account. However, for the brief period that their reign lasted, the hacker left behind
a number of gems sure to enter the Twitter Hall of Fame: Burger King’s bio: “Just
got sold to McDonald’s because the whopper flopped =[ FREEDOM IS FAILURE.” A memorable
tweet: "If I catch you at a Wendys, we're fightin!"
Burger King Dinner Baskets
We all like breaking barriers. To mold new identities, to break free of an image we’ve
carried around with us for years is a liberating experience. But if your entire brand value
is based on fast food, and you deliberately introduce a much slower version of service…
not so much. In an attempt to compete with diners and restaurants with slower service
(again, why?), Burger King introduced a concept called ‘Dinner Baskets’ back in 1993.
Complete with upbeat advertisements (and cheerful 90s rap music), slogans like “Your Way,
Right Away”, BK Dinner Baskets attempted to attract diners that prefer table service,
between the hours of 4 and 8 PM, where free popcorn was offered to customers while waiting,
and ‘waiters’ returned with the eponymous baskets: shrimp, steak, whopper, and chicken
sandwiches were accompanied with baked potatoes or fries. While the falsely exciting campaign
painted the idea as a revelation, most customers disagreed, and the entire concept was shortly
scrapped. Although the idea was not necessarily bad, to begin with, it was awkward and unnecessary
in a business that was renown for its fast service and meals best served with popcorn-less
beginnings.
Sexism at Burger King
You had one job, PR guy. One simple job. Entice the audience with our choicest of foods, draw
the crowds in because our food is excellent, remind everyone that BK is masterful with
its food. But what did you do? You went for the oldest lure in the book. You used a woman
in a provocative posture to convey the message. Not just any woman, a picture of an unsuspecting
woman photoshopped next to a very long sandwich, and captioned it with, ‘It’ll blow your
mind away.’ Yup. You’re fired, PR guy. In the late 2000s, Burger King came up with
the ingenious idea of advertising its BK Super Seven Incher by marketing it with phallic
symbolism in Singapore. The ad instantly sparked outrage in the country, and it was later removed
because Burger King had realized its mistake, but the damage had been done on a global level.
In smaller typography under the boisterous picture were the words: "Fill your desire
for something long, juicy and flame-grilled with the NEW BK SUPER SEVEN INCHER. Yearn
for more after you taste the mind-blowing burger”, and so on. My advice to all those
enticed: Don’t be fooled, kids. It’s just a burger.
Enormous BK Omelette Sandwich
In the case of all fast food chains competing to top each other, advertising is of biblical
significance. When the stakes are high with a new product, Burger King usually takes the
high road: it gives it straight to you, no gimmicks. Dinner Baskets, the Halloween Whopper,
Satisfries: Burger King’s nomenclature is straightforward and immediately mouth-watering
(well, maybe barring Satisfries.) So with Enormous Omelet Sandwich, Burger King’s
loyal patrons knew exactly what to expect, but little did they know the delicious-sounding
dish was loaded with more cholesterol than the daily recommended intake. As a breakfast
sandwich made of sesame-seed rolls loaded with bacon, cheese, sausage, and an eponymous
omelet, the enormous omelet sandwich cashed in big until BK customers decided that they
didn’t want to attempt to clog their arteries too early in the morning.
Burger King Sexism… Again (This Time in Russia)
From Singapore to Russia, Burger King already has two continents down with its sexism. In
the more recent 2018, Burger King in Russia (which is relatively new, having opened its
first branch only in the year 2010) posted a very, very strange post on its VK Page (Russia’s
version of Facebook): It claimed that women made pregnant by World Cup Soccer players
would receive ‘free Whoppers’ because they would be ‘ensuring the success of the
Russian football team for generations to come’ as then their children would get ‘the best
football genes’. Not only was the post explicit, ridiculous, and conjoining very different
things to draw in gullible males (sex, sports, and food), it also propagates an overtly sexist
culture that is prevalent throughout the world. The post was accompanied by an image of a
pregnant woman and was taken down shortly after the immediate backlash. A spokesperson
for BK in the USA said, “We are sorry about the clearly offensive promotion that the
team in Russia launched online. The offer does not represent the company’s values.
We are taking steps to ensure this type of activity does not happen again.”
Bad Behavior BK
It is only far-too-common that underpaid, rebellious teenagers on shoestring budgets
and regular bets with their friends cross the line when boredly stuffing buns with patties
on the daily. But it isn’t the run-of-the-mill teenager working for the burger behemoth that
made it to this list. No, it’s actually the angry, overworked, and disagreeable middle-aged
man that went far enough to deserve an honorary mention. When a customer returned his cold
onion rings in 2013, a BK employee instead offered to taser him and held up a friendly
switchblade for hand-to-blade combat. The man and several BK franchisee owners were
sued in court for negligent hiring and assault. A few other classic newspaper-snippets-on-a-comic’s-wall
stories include a man who discovered a used condom in his whopper (and of course, sued),
a video of a BK employee clad in large trekking shoes standing in two lettuce-filled trays
(fired, and also made into a 2-minute long meme on YouTube), and not to forget, Burger
King’s egregious ad campaign that egged its customers to ‘eat like a snake’, where
a scarily loyal BK patron slithers on the ground to wholly swallow a stolen burger.
But the bad behavior isn’t limited to merely its employees. Burger King franchises are
notorious for refusing to pay employees overtime, and in 2007, the chain was forced to put labels
warning customers of the high trans-fat content in its food or stop using trans-fat altogether.
You already know which route good ol’ BK went.
The Mascot Burger King
Burger King has always needed a face. It searched lands high and dry, low and wet, it snuck
between mountains and grasslands and concrete jungles for the one. And when it finally found
its beloved mascot… it was this guy. A for effort, Burger King, but if we wanted a creepy
plastic man with an extra-creepy smile, we’d go to McDonald’s. With his frozen smile,
dead eyes, and Burger King crown, the burger king of Burger King is lesser a king of fast
food than he is of nightmares. The Burger King was initially introduced as harmless
leprechaun sitting on a burger but later changed to the magical and marvelous Burger King in
1976. The chain itself brands the current icon as a creepy iteration of the burger king,
but BK’s self-awareness does little to hamper the chill that crawls down our spine when
we witness it jutting out of windows and brick walls in less-than-entertaining BK ads. Much
like its big brother, Burger King is overwrought with effortless controversy because of its
global reach and 65-year legacy. But again, just like the Golden Arches, the home of the
whopper tugs at our heartstrings because its high trans-fat and unhealthy cholesterol levels
pale in comparison to the draw of dill pickles drenched in A-1 Steak sauce and grotesque
coal-like seasonal buns. We’ll have it the Burger King way.
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