Getting the joke (or not)
The (anti-)branding blog Dimbulb recently critiqued a Burger King franchise for its risky messaging on the big board. But their analysis seems to have missed the joke.
Dimbulb’s take is this: “the franchisee is trying to tell the local base of customer [sic] something that matters to them, albeit unrelated to the business or experience of retailing fast food…Buy BK if you’re a stalwart for burning oil and coal; hell, let’s split some atoms while we’re at it!”
That might be a good analysis (of a seriously whackadoo franchise owner, among other things) if the author hadn’t failed to connect the two bits of text on the sign. As it stands, in other words, I think he just missed the joke. For those who also missed it, here it is:
- Global warming is baloney;
- therefore, we can conscionably and will facilitate your ability to drive your wasteful, fossil-fuel-powered cars through our wasteful, fossil-fuel-powered restaurant. 24 hours a day. 365 days a year.
Ha ha, right?
Now, the fact that this message is less likely a contentious non sequitur political statement than a one-liner, less neo-conservative psychosis than tastelessness, doesn’t make it any less an advertising misstep. But it does disabuse us of the seemingly inexplicable belief that the franchise seriously asserted a value proposition like this (“rather a Whopper at 2AM tonight than a planet in 10,000 years”) in such a bald-faced way.
| Tagged with: | Advertising, Burger King, Jokes, Tastelessness |
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Comments on this post
1.
Wow. You could be right, and I hadn’t thought that the franchisee was producing a self-referential, post-branded, insider-type joke to delight his customers and prompt burger sales. I actually HOPE that was the intention!