Burger King Caught Stealing a Marketing Concept

by Ritu

[ad#468x60]They didn’t just steal the concept, they totally stole the presentation as well. The only difference is they stole it from nobody else but themselves.

Burger King always seems to blow my mind away with their commercials, not in a good way. Most businesses create ad campaigns based on what’s popular at the moment. And presently, the movie ” The Dark Night” is extremely popular. So Burger King decided to create a commercial to promote their “Dark Whopper.”

Please take a look at the two Burger King commercials below. After you watch the first one make sure to compare the second one with the first commercial. Let’s see if you can find something

The Dark Whopper Inspired By The Dark Knight ( New Commercial )

The Dark Whopper Inspired By Spider Man

You see it. That’s exactly why you shouldn’t take marketing cues from Burger King. Last summer they used the exact same ad for the exact same burger and based it on Spider Man. And this year they once again took the exact same ad and burger and based it on what’s popular today – The Dark Night. It can’t be that hard to come up with something new.

Come on Burger King, we all know your food stinks but you have got to do better than that to compel people to eat your food. Differentiate yourself not just in quality of food but also on how you convey your marketing messages. We are not as dumb as you might think.

Anyway, thanks for the lesson Burger King![ad#336x280]

{ 7 comments }

cak August 4, 2008 at 10:06 am

It is not really stealing when you do it to yourself. For example, I didn’t just steal £5 from myself and use it to get lunch, when I then again stole from myself and ate.
This sort of advertising is aimed at kids and fools, neither of which have a great memory, and are going to care.
Don’t be surprised to see the same add out next year for Spiderman IV, although I have no doubt you will write about such a non-issue.

JMillion August 4, 2008 at 12:22 pm

I’m surprised there wasn’t a reissue of the Black Stack BBQ Burger for all of Will Smith’s movies. Dark whopper, dark actor they’re the same shit!

Omnius August 4, 2008 at 7:12 pm

Yeah…. It’s not stealing if you do it yourself.

According to your reasoning, I hesitate to call it logic, you can’t use the same idea twice?

You should tell the judge that if you ever get convicted of anything.

“You can’t sentence me to that, Your Honor, you already gave out that sentence. It would be stealing!”

You can’t steal from yourself.

Ritu August 4, 2008 at 7:53 pm

To the commentators who argue that Burger King can’t be stealing since they are using their own concept and idea – You are very right! The reason I used that title is to draw attention. It might sound deceiving but it’s not. It’s a form of marketing and that’s how newspapers and journalism in general has been operating for years. The whole point was to draw attention to the video embedded on this post. This is the reason why I made it clear in the opening statement that it wasn’t someone else’s concept but their very own. :-)

Mike Smith - Bootstrapping Blog August 5, 2008 at 1:17 pm

Good find. I would have never noticed it. I clicked play on both videos at the same time and laughed the entire time. Same exact storyline, same screenshots, everything. Definitely not stealing, but it does show the lack of creativity in their marketing department.

hoodia gordonii review December 15, 2008 at 4:22 am

I completely agree, with the previous commentator, actually it is not stealing, but I think it is not fair, and just make customers laugh.

Iola Mearns September 17, 2010 at 8:54 pm

It is really crazy that you blogged about this. I found you on bing and I had been searching for info about this. Nice blog, thank you for the info. I will check back to check for new entries

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