Burger King Film Crew Finds Everyone Loves Its Chicken Tenders, Despite Them Not Existing

Burger King recently took to the streets of New York City and found quite a few fans of its Crispy Chicken Tenders. “I like the crispy crunch on the outside,” raves one. Another praises “the tender all-white chicken inside.”

The problem? Burger King doesn’t have chicken tenders, or at least hasn’t had them since dropping them from the menu around 2013.

But through a combination of understandable misperception and people just wanting to tell camera crews what they want to hear, Burger King (via agency MullenLowe Boston) found more than a few folks willing to gush about their love for Crispy Chicken Tenders, which they swear they’ve totally eaten recently.

The good news for these confused and/or obsequious superfans is that Crispy Chicken Tenders now indeed are a thing, joining the Burger King menu today.

One irony of this launch ad is that Burger King’s U.K. operation has faced a somewhat opposite issue in expanding its chicken menu. The British extension of the brand and agency BBH recently launched a competition offering to pay 20,000 pounds to someone willing to “have a bite of a chicken burger.”

“We know full well about our checkered chicken past,” noted U.K. CEO Alasdair Murdoch in the video below.

So on one side of the Atlantic, people need to be bribed to even try Burger King’s fried chicken, while on the other, people will happily tell you they love it even if it’s fictional. Maybe this says less about Burger King than it does about Brits and Americans?

Below are the credits for the U.S. Crispy Chicken Tenders spot:

CREDITS:

Agency: MullenLowe Boston
Client: Burger King
Chief Creative Officer: Mark Wenneker
Executive Creative Director: Tim Vaccarino
Executive Creative Director: David Weist
SVP, Creative Director:
Enrique Camacho
Associate Creative Director: Cody Dummer
Art Director: Isabel Taborga
Junior Copywriter: Wilsynn Wheat
VP, Account Director: Kerry McKibbin
Account Supervisor: Alison Whisenant
Account Executive: Caroline Bailey
Strategy Director: Mike Cassell
Social Media Strategist: Jimmy George
Content Writer: Arielle Mulgrew
Strategic Analyst: Jason Waterman
Senior Business Affairs Manager: Amy Keddy
Project Managers: Christina Pappas and Sarah Libby
Production Partner: AwesomenessTV
Executive Producers: James T. Moore and Phillip Van Wagoner.
Co-Producer: Hana Leshner

David Griner

@griner

David Griner is creative and innovation editor for Adweek. He's been covering agencies, creativity, technology and marketing innovation for more than a decade and is host of Adweek's podcast.