Burger King ad analysis

Burger King Ad Analysis

Introduction -
Banned ads are some of the most intriguing ads and some of the best kind of ads to analyze when someone is looking at ads in general. They are ads that are able to draw in customers with their shock value and raunchy appeal. Even if a person who sees these does not want the product they are selling, after they see an offensive ad that person will now be thinking about the product on the ad, and if they keep thinking about that certain product for long enough, they will inevitably have to buy the product at least one time before they are satisfied. Burger King, whose ads are being analyzed here, manages to do that with sex appeal and sexual innuendos. This ad campaign for the sandwich “The BK Super Seven Incher” uses sex appeal and a sexual innuendo to try to draw in the customer to buy their product. With these ads, Burger King is trying to say that if someone were to buy this burger, they will have sex appeal and have a sexual relationship with the women in the ads or with other people in general.

Author- 

Burger King has an extensive history of advertising that dates back to the late 1960’s. They first made national news in 1974 when they ran an ad campaign that took a shot at McDonalds, albeit indirectly and subtly. Then in the 1980s BK had a major controversy where they directly took a shot at McDonalds in a commercial.  Another controversial ad that was a viral hit in the early 2000s was the subservient chicken, an unofficial mascot for Burger King for a short time. The chicken would do anything that the internet would request, and his viral videos got over 400 million views. This shows that burger king has a history of controversial ads so the ads for the super seven incher fit the profile of Burger King.The author of the ads from burger king was an ad agency that was outside of the United States, which is why this kind of risqué ad would be allowed to be shown, as this ad would be banned quickly in the United States. More specifically, this ad was designed for a limited time promotion in the small city state of Singapore, in Southeast Asia. This ad was created in 2009 and was only up for a limited time to promote the sandwich. Burger King would not reveal the identity of the ad agency responsible for the creation of this advertisement, but did confirm that it was a local ad agency in Singapore. But sense this is not in the United States, the ad was allowed to be shown. In Singapore, there are many more diverse things than in a country such as the United States. Singapore is a relatively young country, and they are very diverse in such things as religion, culture and language. Since there is so much diversity in the country, the diversity will probably translate over to advertisements. So even though this ad is not allowed and accepted in the US, which says there is too much sex in this ad, in a place that is more open and diverse like Singapore, this ad is much more accepted and allowed, and it actually received positive feedback where it was shown. The author does say a lot about this ad, as where the ad was developed allows many more things than the United States.

Audience-          

The audience for this ad is pretty clear cut, as the sexual appeal ads will always appeal to men the majority of the time because they usually use sexy women and seldom use sexy men, and this ad is no different. Also, this ad uses a very blatant sexual innuendo which will appeal to men much more than it will appeal to women. This ad does definitely appeal to a male audience, while it pretty much alienates a female audience who do not want to be portrayed in this manner and who quite frankly will be offended by this ad. Not all women will find this advertisement offensive, but more often than not they will not want to eat this burger because of the way women are being portrayed in the ads. Males will be drawn in by this ad, but it will be younger males in their teens and 20s that will be even more drawn in by this ad. The income of people being drawn in by this ad is not relevant, although people who will be eating fast food more are lower income people, but this ad is trying to use sex appeal which will appeal to people of all ages. The same goes with ethnicity, people of all ethnicities will be drawn in with sex appeal.

As the evidence of the audience shows, this ad uses the Ad persuasion technique of sex and humor to try to draw in the viewer to buy the product.

Text- The first ad shows a blond woman who has a look of surprise and shock on her face. Adjacent from her mouth is the sandwich that is being advertised (BK Super Seven Incher). Below the woman’s face and the sandwich, in bold letters are the words “It’ll blow your mind”. In the top right corner of the ad there is the Burger King symbol, and the words “it just tastes better”. At the bottom of the ad, below all of the other things, is the actual name of the sandwich and the price of the sandwich combo. There is also a few sentences of fine print, which further entices the customer to buy this product. In this ad, the sandwich represents a penis because of the sexual innuendo that is being said here, which is the word blow, which has a double meaning here. The word blow refers to the sex act of a blowjob, but it also can mean something shocking like is being seen here, like something blowing your mind. This ad tries to use sex appeal with the word blow, and it also uses humor as when some people see this ad, they will laugh at it for the sexual reference being made. The second ad is something similar, but it contains an even more blatant sexual reference in the text. It shows another woman holding a sandwich, which again represents a penis, with the words “blow one and swallow”. This is an even stronger reference to the sex act of a blowjob. Again the ad draws in with sexual appeal and also some may be drawn in with humor.Something that Burger King could’ve improved on in the first ad with the blond woman is actually give her arms so it at least looks somewhat realistic, because now it just looks silly to some extent.   

Conclusion- With the “Super Seven Incher”, Burger King has created an advertisement that has created a lot of controversy all over the world, from Singapore to the United States. Since this ad has created so much buzz all over the world, one would say that using sex appeal in an ad is very successful because of all the controversy that the ad could create, and when something creates controversy it is much more well-known and then if it is much better known, it will be sold more times than it would if it was not very controversial. It also says that the consumer is very into sex appeal and want to buy products with more sex appeal.

Works Cited Page-

Adweek. 1/3/2005, Vol. 46 Issue 1, p4-6. 3p. 4 Color Photographs.

Smith, Andrew F. "Burger King." Pop Culture Universe: Icons, Idols, Ideas. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.