Amazingly, we've probably all seen the big chicken circling the net. Burger King's Subservient Chicken had a million hits in the first 24 hours. Mind you, that was BEFORE any ads appeared. A million hits driven by a meme. The entire idea was executed in less than two months from inception to taking the site live.
So, apart from the fun and interesting stuff, what's the point of all this?Keller said, "The Internet is largely untapped for branding purposes", and that the idea was to get people talking about Burger King. But not just anyone: the main idea was to get plugged-in opinion leaders talking and spreading the message.
Internet Week > E-Business > Faux Webcam Becomes Real Online Branding Success > April 14, 2004
My question to you is: Does this chicken advance the essence of Burger King's brand? Do you feel better or worse about BK because of this? My gut reaction is that this is a good thing for BK. Somehow I feel that I owe them something for the entertainment provided by the chicken. Is the chicken a "Free Prize Inside?"
David, I hate to be a Grump but I'm with John Moore, it's pure trickery, gimmickry and bamboozlement!! Cleverness, cool quotient and word of mouth linked to a significiant innovation is one thing, but this comes over as cheap (cheep?) and artificial and is also for a product with no new value to me as a consumer...
It also made me think of BK's real subservient chickens ...
http://www.factoryfarming.com/poultry.htm
Posted by: Chris Lawer | April 21, 2004 at 04:26 PM
Hmmm. Swing, and a miss for me. Now, if it was done for PETA.... yeah, I'd still get bored with it.
However, this...
http://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com/
...I can''t get out of my head and my kids fall out of their seats just mentioning it conversationally. Somebody needs to hook these guys up with a client.
Posted by: fouroboros | April 17, 2004 at 01:40 AM
No problem with the tone, John. That's why it was worded as a question, not a statement. I hope you have a great Saturday!
Posted by: David Young | April 16, 2004 at 10:03 PM
The BK Chicken ain't no free prize.
The BK Chicken is a gimmick.
In Seth's Free Prize Inside, he defines a gimmick as, ".. a cheap trick, a ruse, something not worth the time or attention of a professional."
The "Free Prize" that Seth champions is bascially the 'benefit of the benefit.' The free prize is not the first reason why you buy a product/service, but it is the first reason you talk about it.
We marketers are gonna have to be careful and not label every innovative and sticky idea as being a "free prize."
(Sorry for the tone here. Its Friday. I had a long day. I'm cranky.)
Posted by: johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy) | April 16, 2004 at 07:45 PM
I actually didn't realize it was 'sponsored' by Burger King the first couple times I visited.
Being on a fast net connection (and likely multitasking for the few seconds it took for the flash file to load) I didn't notice the subdued Burger King logo on the loading screen. Nor did I click on any of the lower links; simply typing in commands for the chicken to see what happened.
If it was my project, I would have likely added a small burger king logo somewhere off to the side but still visible. As it is, if someone calls a friend over to the computer to see the chicken antics, subsequent johnny-come-lately's have no way to see it's associated with Burger King.
Additional 2 cents: I would have used set lighting for all the videos, because it *appears* there was a window in the room and you can see lighting differences from video to video (as the sun moves across the sky outside, I assume). And I would have placed faint markers on the floor so he would return to virtually the exact same spot at the end of every video so you wouldn't see the transition as much.
But that's just a few constructive nit-picks. :) I absolutely love the concept and execution as well as the viral effect I've seen.
Kudos to whoever put that together!
Posted by: Steve Gerard | April 15, 2004 at 12:38 PM
I love the BK Chicken --- but does it impact my feelings about Burger King? Nope. I'm thinking the guys who made the site are cool, but it didn't make me hungry for BK Chicken or anything. I wonder what the "young'uns" think. They're the big BK fans. I'll have to show it to my son and get his opinion.
Posted by: Yvonne DiVita | April 15, 2004 at 08:28 AM