What does Whopper love smell like? It's "the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat," as captured by Flame, the body spray from Burger King.
Introduced in December, just in time for the holiday shopping season, the cologne is the latest offbeat product idea from BK shop Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Adweek's U.S. Agency of the Year for 2008 (see main story). "We're having a lot of fun with it," says Russ Klein, the fast-food chain's president of global marketing, strategy and innovation. "We're not in the business of fragrances, but we are in the businesses of being relevant in pop culture, and it's one of those-to use [Crispin co-chairman] Alex Bogusky's term-additional momentum points that we threw in the market. And it works."
Made available exclusively at hip New York City drugstore chain Ricky's and at FireMeetsDesire.com (where the King is seen lounging in front of a fire, wearing nothing but an animal fur), the fragrance quickly made its way into late-night talk-show jokes and was soon selling on eBay for a whole lot more than $3.99.
The buzz-building scent, packaged to look like a matchbook or lighter, isn't the first BK-branded item masterminded by the Colorado- and Miami-based agency. Two years ago, Crispin won the prestigious Titanium Grand Prix at the International Advertising Festival in Cannes for its top-selling series of Xbox games it created for the brand. The shop has even invented popular BK food products, like Chicken Fries.
The endeavors are all part of a growing design and product-innovation discipline at Crispin that is taking the agency deeper into its clients' businesses.
For example, one of the pieces of 2008 work that Bogusky is most proud of, he says, is the online BFD ("Big Fantastic Deal") Pizza Builder, which lets visitors to Domino's Web site build, name and register their own specialty pizzas. "It bridges the space between what we're doing in digital and product innovation," says Bogusky. The agency is also working on a unique offline ordering system for Domino's called the Knock Box-a sleekly designed box that customers keep at home and, when knocked, connects them, like a speed dial, to an order taker at the pizza chain.
And though details are under wraps, Crispin is planning new work for Old
Navy, one of the shop's big account wins of 2008, that will showcase its
design and product-innovation thinking.
Crispin's product-innovation department, launched in 2007, is led by John Winsor, executive director of strategy and product innovation, and Neil Riddell, director of product innovation. The design group is often briefed alongside creative and other agency departments and now boasts its own 3-D rapid prototype printer, allowing the agency to swiftly demonstrate its product-building capabilities to clients. The ultimate goal, says Bogusky, is "to inject marketing into the product, so you know what your narrative and your hook is going to be and have it baked into the marketing for all the products that you launch."
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