Burger King’s New Ad Recipe: Hold the Hype

Burger King has big plans to wipe the smile off Ronald McDonald’s face.

Later this summer, Burger King will unleash a $200-million ad campaign--closely tied to a new marketing strategy--that insiders say will try to completely reposition the perennial fast-food also-ran as a feisty, friendly, family place that will go far out of its way to make customers happy.

Much of the campaign is still in the works or under wraps. And until now, officials have refused to reveal any details of the upcoming ads. But in interviews, top executives from Burger King and its two recently named New York advertising agencies said Burger King is about to begin an ambitious drive to persuade consumers that the fast-food chain is going to change for the better. Executives say many of the ads will feature Burger King employees and customers who not only talk about Burger King, but also about themselves.

“American consumers are tired of hype,” said Gary Langstaff, executive vice president of marketing at Burger King. “When you use real people in ads, people can see it’s not hype. Real people reflect the reality of what you get when you walk into one of our stores.”

Burger King officials have hired consultants to help them carefully select employees from among 250,000 workers nationwide to get this message across. “Our employees deserve credit for the long hours they work day in and day out,” said Langstaff. “You can bet your bippy we’ll use them in our ads.”

They won’t be the first to test this method. From time to time, McDonald’s has used real people in its campaigns. “They’ve been some of our most successful commercials,” said Paul D. Schrage, chief marketing officer of McDonald’s. An advertisement several years ago that featured an older woman who worked for a McDonald’s store won plenty of industry praise. “Using real people can make for very effective advertising,” said Schrage, “but if it’s done wrong, it can also be very ineffective.”

Obviously, Burger King officials think that they can do it successfully.

For nearly five years, Burger King sales have been flatter than a burger on the griddle. Annual sales per store have stayed at about $1 million while McDonald’s posts about $1.5 million per store. And several of Burger King’s ad campaigns have been veritable industry laughingstocks. Who can forget the bespectacled Herb, the nerd? And who can remember slogans such as “Best food for fast times,” or for that matter the soon-to-be-axed slogan, “We do it like you’d do it?”

“Everything they’ve done has been poor copies of McDonald’s,” said Robert H. Schmidt, president of the New York ad firm Levine, Huntley, Schmidt & Beaver. “They’ve been thoroughly out-marketed.”

But things may be changing. Since the British conglomerate Grand Metropolitan purchased Burger King’s parent company, Pillsbury, in December, executives have been carefully penciling a new marketing strategy for Burger King. They quickly named two new ad agencies--instead of one--to handle the business and charged each with separate tasks. Executives boldly promise that upcoming Burger King ads will be a clear departure from current fast-food advertising. For example, some of the commercials are expected to be aired without jingles. Executives believe that this will help get across the seriousness of Burger King’s commitment to improvements at the chain.

And after years of focusing ads on “flame-broiled” burgers, Burger King executives are now convinced that their menus actually have little to do with the reason people often prefer to go to McDonald’s instead of Burger King.

“It just doesn’t make any sense to focus on one aspect of the product,” said Edward L. Wax, chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising, which is in charge of Burger King’s promotional advertising. “That’s far too narrow.”

While Burger King tied its fortune to flame broiling, it was ignoring what is perhaps its most important customer, said Roy Bostock, president of the New York ad agency D’Arcy, Masius, Benton & Bowles, which will create Burger King’s national ad campaign. “Flame broiling has absolutely no appeal to kids.”

Burger King executives now believe that the overall experience of eating at Burger King has to be vastly improved. And those improvements--from cleanliness to friendliness--have to be carefully communicated in ads. “People are not rejecting Burger King because of the food,” said Lee Kovel, senior vice president and group creative director at the ad agency J. Walter Thompson, which created Burger King ads for years. “Clearly the problem is in the experience of eating there. Burger King is right to focus on that.”

These improvements will be advertised step by step over the coming months, but only as the improvements are actually made. The new campaign is expected to mostly focus on two things: service and image.

“Service is as important as the food you get,” said Langstaff. “And right now, no one is the benchmark for that.” By getting employees involved in the advertising, Burger King hopes it can improve both morale and service. Unlike McDonald’s, which owns most of its outlets, fewer than one-quarter of Burger King’s stores are company-owned. That can make things such as quality of service harder to control.

In the fast-food business, “part of your advertising has to be used to stimulate your employees to get them to do what you want them to do,” said Gene Cameron, president of the Los Angeles office of the ad firm BBDO Worldwide. “But once you’ve established a point of difference, the hard part is getting franchisees to execute on it.”

Burger King will try to establish an image of a place where the fun of eating there is real--not just hype. “Burger King needs to stand for something other than the adversary of McDonald’s,” said Langstaff. “We’ve got to develop an identity of our own and not at the expense of someone else.”

Unlike a number of its recent slogans, executives say Burger King must develop a slogan that stands for something. “They need a theme that’s sort of a rallying cry for the company,” said J. Walter Thompson’s Kovel. The trick, of course, will be for Burger King to live up to the promises it is expected to make in its ads.

“We can talk about it all day long,” said Langstaff. “The real secret will be to deliver.”

Athletes Team Up for New Nike Campaign

Ever wonder how many sports Bo Jackson can play? So did Nike. And in a new TV commercial, the athletic shoe maker has assembled a veritable Who’s Who of athletes to answer that question.

In the 60-second ad for its “cross-trainer” shoes, scheduled to break during next month’s Baseball All-Star game, a parade of athletes will sing the praises of dual-sportsman Jackson.

As Jackson is shown playing baseball, Dodger slugger Kirk Gibson comments: “Bo Jackson knows how to play baseball.” This is followed by quick cuts of Jackson playing a number of other sports, with similar comments from Los Angeles Ram quarterback Jim Everett, basketball superstar Michael Jordan, tennis star John McEnroe, marathon runner Joan Benoit Samuelson and even Los Angeles Kings’ hockey great Wayne Gretzky.

In the ad, when Gretzky sees Jackson on ice skates, rather than say that Jackson knows how to play hockey, Gretzky simply smirks and says, “No.”

The commercial, which features music by blues guitarist Bo Diddley, ends with Bo Jackson trying to impress Bo Diddley with his own skills on electric guitar. But Jackson only manages to play some sour notes, to which Diddley responds, “Bo, you don’t know diddly.”

Although Nike declined to reveal the cost of the ad, spokeswoman Elizabeth Dolan said: “Even if it cost us $1 million to make, keep in mind, it’s our whole cross-trainer campaign for at least the next six months.” She said the athletes were not individually paid a specific amount to appear in the ad, but are all under long-term contract to Nike. Said Dolan: “This just counts as one of their appearances in an ad.”

Sheraton Corp. Opens Door for L.A. Agency

It’s an odd thing to be an ad agency but not to create any ads. But that has been the case for nearly four years at the Los Angeles office of Wells, Rich, Greene.

All that changed last week when the agency won the $8-million Western region ad business for the Sheraton Corp. hotel chain. “It’ll be our first creative effort in awhile,” said Dick Macedo, president of the Los Angeles office. “But I’m not worried.”

Although Wells, Rich, Greene purchases many millions of dollars worth of commercial time and print media space for MGM/UA Film Group, Macedo said its Los Angeles office has not created any ads since it lost the Jack-in-the-Box ad business in 1985.

The agency’s New York office--which now creates corporate ads for Sheraton--will be watching its Los Angeles office closely. “The key task,” said Macedo, “is to separate Sheraton from other hotel chains and to convince the American business traveler that Sheraton is a good partner.”

Latino Firm Wraps Up Sees Spanish Ads Deal

Sees Candies wants Latinos to develop a taste for its chocolates.

So, for the first time, the San Francisco-based candy maker has hired a Latino ad agency to create television and print ads in Spanish--the Hispanic Group, a 2-year-old Culver City agency.

“The Hispanic market loves candy,” said Anita Santiago, president of the ad agency, “but Sees has never tried to specifically attract them.”

The TV commercials, which will break next month on Spanish-language TV, will try to convince Latinos that Sees is the best place to placate the sweet tooth. “If the ad campaign works,” said Santiago, “we expect Sees could become our biggest client.”