The Weird Road to Burger King's Moldy Whopper

When two agencies pitch a similar idea, how does a brand handle it? What about three agencies? Oh and also, what if the idea is really, really weird and potentially toxic for your brand? While many marketers likely would pit their vendors against each other in a high-stress competition to see who would come out on top with the best (not to mention safest and cheapest) execution, Burger King instead went an unexpected direction. All three agencies would get the credit. That shared parentage is only one of the many odd aspects of Burger King's Moldy Whopper, which launched today to promote the brand's pledge against artificial preservatives—and quickly became one of the most debated marketing campaigns in recent memory. Luckily for the brand, it's a gamble that seems to be paying off, at least in terms of initial response. Fernando Machado, global CMO of Burger King, says his team's been watching the real-time reactions to the Moldy Whopper in social media and has been pleased to find audiences receptive to the strange premise. "People are smarter than some think," Machado told Adweek today. "We are monitoring social media response and press, and it's largely positive. In social, the preliminary read is that it's more than 95% positive or neutral, and it's a very small minority who've reacted negatively to the campaign." [kickout id="1"] The creative premise—taking pride in the fact Burger King's Whopper now degrades naturally thanks to the recent removal of artificial preservatives—is one that most fast food brands would never have allowed out of the pitch room. But Burger King's willingness to embrace both the counterintuitive concept and the three agencies that independently pitched it highlights how the brand has evolved in recent years to become one of the industry's boldest marketers and a champion of its many agency partners. Machado said the concept required patience on two fronts: First, waiting for Burger King's products to be slowly tweaked over five years to the point where the chain could say it was ready to remove all artificial preservatives and other additives from its food (a process it says will be completed in the U.S. by the end of this year). Second, such a bold concept requires a proven track record of successful, boundary-pushing creative, which Burger King has definitely racked up over the past few years. [kickout id="3"] "I probably have less scars over my body than the whole team would have had five or six years ago," Machado says, laughing about how The Moldy Whopper likely would have been a tougher sell internally before Burger King stretched its wings with hit campaigns like Whopper Detour. "We created a path to be more comfortable with work that is bold and challenges the rules of advertising," he told Adweek today. "We have done things that were very bold before—Burning Stores, Proud Whopper—that are very out of the norm for our industry and require a lot of explaining to bring people along with you internally. "Today we're more comfortable with being uncomfortable." [kickout id="2"] Getting in position for decomposition Machado says the campaign that would become The Moldy Whopper began about three years ago, as the brand was getting serious with its efforts to remove artificial additives from its food. Frequent agency partner David approached Machado about a campaign centered on the idea that, without artificial preservatives to prevent nature from taking its course, Burger King's food would, you know, rot. While food "going bad" is understandably avoided in food advertising, David felt it could be conveyed as a positive sign of a more natural product. Machado was intrigued but felt the idea had come too early in the chain's logistically complex process of removing additives from its supply chain. "When they presented, it was slightly different than what we're doing today, and we were not ready to do it," he said. "Our products weren't 'clean' yet. We said, 'We really like the idea, but we have to wait until our products are ready.'" About two years later, Swedish agency Ingo received a challenge from its client, Burger King's Scandinavian group, to promote local restaurants removing artificial preservatives. [kickout id="6"] Without knowing that David had previously pitched an idea along similar lines, Ingo came back with the concept of showing—and celebrating—a Whopper's decomposition. "We first presented to Iwo Zakowski, the managing director of Scandinavia, and he liked it," Ingo executive creative director Björn Ståhl tells Adweek. "He told us to show it to Fernando. When Fernando saw it, he said: 'It’s against every rule of food advertising. I love it. We have to do it.'" Machado said he remembers loving how the concept of showing a Whopper's exquisite corpse rather than fresh off the grill struck him as a powerful message in a category that often plays by the same rules. "When I saw the presentation from Bjorn, it really clicked," Machado said. "We are all used to doing photography and filming products that look overly perfect. We do that too. We don't alter the product to be something it's not, but we make sure to shoot it in a way that looks as good as possible." "Showing a Whopper completely deteriorated as the hero product, in my view, it does break all the rules of advertising," he said. "At the same time, it's making a very powerful statement to the fast food industry." [kickout id="5"] Putting collaboration above competition As global CMO for Burger King, Machado now had a potentially awkward situation. Ingo had pitched a great idea that was unknowingly reminiscent of one David had already presented years prior, and the time now seemed right to pull it off. "I said, 'Let's do this together,'" Machado recalled. "I didn't want Ingo to do the idea by itself when I had seen an idea along the same lines presented by David. Those two agencies are kind of like sister agencies. So I proposed that, and they embraced it, because that's the mindset we have here—a mindset of collaboration." Ingo and David are, indeed, related as far as agencies go. Ingo is run through a partnership of agency networks Grey and Ogilvy. David is in Ogilvy's portfolio and is even named for founder David Ogilvy. So it wasn't too strange that they would work together. It also didn't hurt that Ingo's Ståhl and David's global creative chief, Pancho Cassis, have a strong relationship. "Ingo and David are from the same network, and Bjorn and I are friends—actually, I'm a huge fan of his," Cassis said. "We started collaborating closely to make this happen. For us, it was amazing news that this idea was back on the table with a real chance of getting made." Publicis enters the scene As the Moldy Whopper campaign was being developed, agency network Publicis presented several ideas to Burger King that included—you guessed it—a concept about rotting food as a sign of preservative-free ingredients. Machado said that, despite the campaign building already being underway, he saw promise in some of the aspects Publicis brought to the presentation of the idea, including via layouts and headlines. "I told them, 'We're already working on this, and it's already a partnership with two other agencies in our roster, but there are some things in your work that I like. I want to use them, so I want you three to collaborate,' which is very unusual," Machado said. While Ingo was definitely the lead agency on the project, Machado said, David also played a hands-on role in shaping the design, typography and video presentation. "I decided to list all three [in the campaign credits], and they were all OK with that, because it's the right thing to do," Machado said. "It's the first time I've had one campaign with three agencies listed in the credits, but it's so good, and to different extents, they all contributed." [kickout id="4"] Looking at the finished product of the campaign, which required the team at Ingo to spend months obsessing over mold patterns to create the perfect images, Ståhl said he believes that fans will appreciate the candor and creativity of Burger King's unexpected approach. "Once you get the message, I think people like it. And the message is not hard to understand," Ståhl said. "People are tired of flawless pictures of products. This is something different. It’s truth and honesty. Probably the most beautiful moldy burgers that ever been photographed."

Food Industry News

3 Years, 3 Agencies: The Weird Road to Burger King's Moldy Whopper

CMO Fernando Machado explains the counterintuitive concept's path from pitch to reality

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