April 15th, 2009 by Michelle Moore

Ok, I will admit that I have never liked any of the BK commercials with that dude in the king suit with a big head. Then again, I’m over 40 and I remember when it took two hands to handle a Whopper and the “king” was a cartoon and we all got paper crowns… I was pretty amused by the Sir Mix-a-Lot Spongebob commercial, but then my kids are 24 and 26 years old. I’m not sure what percentage of parents are ticked off about this TV commercial, but they obviously haven’t bothered to watch Spongebob Squarepants themselves, which is full of ‘adult’ humor. As with the Motrin Meltdown, it seems like a case of a small segment of the general population has been extremely vocal and forced a major brand to change its behavior for no reason other than they feel offended.

BK has had a string of controversial commericals for a while now. Some fly, some don’t. But honestly, someone at Burger King needs to wake the heck up and pay attention because they have a marvelous opportunity that they are brutally ruining every time they release a commercial that causes a social backlash.

BK, I have one word for you -

CROWDSOURCE!

If someone at Burger King had even one finger on the pulse of today’s consumer, or half an ear on the groundswell, they might have chosen to expand and explore the fringes of commercial advertising in a different way. Perhaps by putting all their controversial commercial ideas online in a special storyboard area, for example… make people sign up to rate or “judge” these commercials a la American Idol – everyone secretly wants to be Simon Cowell – let them!

Or borrow a page from Bob Parson’s book of advertising and set up an “internet only” section on a web site where people can see the commercials that didn’t make for “decent” television. Godaddy has practically built an entire reputation on bucking the system and seeing just how racy they can make a television commercial without having the FCC yank it off the air. Of course this might not be in keeping with the mass youth market, but then again, you really aren’t marketing to a “mass youth market” when you’re re-writing Baby Got Back. School-age kids may not even know that song. They just see Spongebob and some phone books.

Let the “crowd” define where the line is that you shouldn’t cross.  That would save you a lot of apologizing and simultaneously create a new social realm where you can actually interface with your customers and find out what they really think!

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