Burger King's Controversial Whopper Virgin Ads

BK Campaign Raised Cultural and Nutritional Issues for the Industry

Jan 1, 2009

Critics said Burger King advertising tested not only the taste of hamburgers but also the good taste boundaries for dealing with other cultures. Were they over sensitive?

Late in 2008, the Crispin Porter & Bogusky (CP&B) agency of Miami sent a production crew to remote areas of Romania, Thailand and Greenland to conduct "Whopper-vs-Big Mac" taste tests among people who had never heard of a hamburger. The heavy criticism that greeted the commercials may carry long-term warnings for the industry on a variety of issues, but Burger King shareholders had reason to smile.

The Telegraph of London reported that the testing crew traveled 20,000 miles to rural areas of the world, using "13 planes, two dog sleds and one helicopter" to find unbiased "whopper virgins." A spokesman called it "the world’s purest taste test." Somebody thought North Americans would care which burger is really preferred in such areas.

The burger testers were filmed in their full native garb trying to pick up, bite into and evaluate the hamburgers. The crew produced a website documentary to supplement the television ads.

Preferred Native Seal Meat

The documentary showed some testers choosing Big Macs and one Greenland tester saying he preferred his native seal meat. Whoppers, of course, were the big winners.

The controversy began with labeling the taste testers "whopper virgins," a term that might have stimulated even more discussion than it was intended to generate. From there, the critics just piled on.

Stuart Elliot of the New York Times wrote that the project was "off-putting" and "came off like cultural imperialism."

Corporate Colonialism

The Chicago Tribune headlined the campaign as a "supersize flop." The Tribune’s Tom Hundley quoted critics saying the campaign "smacks of ‘corporate colonialism,’ ‘cultural bullying’ and the worst kind of Ugly Americanism."

The Motley Fool reported some critics accused BK of "exploitation" and chided the company for "introducing new foodstuffs that are outside the native cultures' dietary norms." Rick Munarriz added that "it's hard to watch impoverished citizens of this planet bite into a burger for the first time without wondering what the fatty burgers will do to their dietary habits."

Institute of Human Nutrition

Sharon Akabas of Columbia’s Institute of Human Nutrition asked the New York Daily News. "What's next? Are we going to start taking guns out to some of these remote places and ask them which one they like better?"

Marilyn Borchardt, development director for Food First, told the Daily News that the campaign was insensitive.

The Inquisitor, a blog, chided Burger King for "visiting poor people in remote locations, some who would be at best surviving on below poverty levels, and throwing a burger in their faces," adding "it doesn't get much more offensive than this."

The Angry Asian Man website said the commercials imply "that the people in these locations (in traditional cultural dress, for good measure) are somehow backwards and exotic because they've never had a burger in their lives."

Russ Klein Defends Campaign

Russ Klein, BK’s head of global marketing strategy, said that "by embarking on a voyage of this magnitude that held no guarantees and left us open to vulnerabilities, we took a leap of faith that our signature product would win people over at first bite."

He added that "the first order of business was to be certain that we conducted the filming with respect for the cultures and people involved in the test." In the documentary, the taste testers smiled a lot, were reported to be "very gracious" and invited the crew back anytime.

Burger King launched the "Whopper Virgin" campaign in the first week of December. Between December 3 and December 31, perhaps coincidentally, its stock rose from $18.78 to $22.82, a 21.5% increase. The Dow Jones Industrial average rose 2.1% in that same period.

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