Big Beef

Who's gonna tell the Burger King witch hunters great creative isn't about them?

Watch out, y’all.
Marketers, moms, and LinkedIn loudmouths are big mad at Burger King.
A week and a half ago, Burger King and BBH London dropped the “Bundles of Joy” campaign featuring creative that immediately divided the industry and ignited one of the cringiest pissing contests I’ve seen on LinkedIn in quite a while.

The “Bundles of Joy” campaign assets focus on a particular moment in a new mother’s life—indulging in her first postpartum meal.
According to BBH London, the creative was informed by a strategic insight uncovered in a survey conducted by Mumsnet on behalf of Burger King UK. After polling 2,000 mothers, the survey revealed that the first meal after childbirth is something birthing mothers highly anticipate. 39% of survey respondents said they considered their first post-birth bite the ultimate version of that particular food. It’s a pretty big deal according to the mums.

The campaign shows women cradling their newborns in one hand and digging into their Burger King order of choice in the other. The minimal copy speaks only to the “arrival time” of…the baby? Nope. The sandwich.

Before we get into the chaos, I recommend watching the commercial spot.

Almost as quickly as the ads dropped on September 26th (The day most babies are born in the UK. Cute!) internet voices gathered their torches and took to their platforms. From the definition of “mother” to the nutritional value of Burger King food to what constitutes child abuse, the criticism ran far and wide.

One LinkedIn user suggested that only drug-addled nut jobs would even imply that anyone should consume something as grotesque as Burger King.

Others came forward to remind everyone that if you support Burger King you’re basically the equivalent of Hexxus in Fern Gully.

Someone had to remind us that we’re not allowed to even think about burgers when some people are battling cardiovascular disease. They’re even organizing to take the campaign down for its “exploitative” nature.

One LinkedIn user even went so far as to say breastfeeding your child after consuming Burger King is “borderline child abuse.”

Some industry folks who know how to touch grass have been able to separate themselves from the brand creative designed to sell sandwiches, offering insightful feedback even if they weren’t fans of the execution or the product.

Others thought the ads were strong and openly voiced their support.

In watching all of this unfold, I can’t help but think about what the great Rick Rubin says when it comes to making good creative.
"The audience comes last.”

Truly good creative can’t—and shouldn’t—be all things to all people, right?
The only way a piece of creative can say everything to everyone is to say nothing at all.

"Art is above and beyond judgement,” Rubin writes in The Creative Act: A Way of Being. “It either speaks to you or it doesn’t.”

It’s the “it doesn’t” that’s gone off the rails in this instance. Imagine going through life as an adult thinking everything you come into contact with has an obligation to make you feel comfortable. These are the folks running the industry’s creative teams!? Streets is done.

For the record, I’m a childless-by-choice, anti-fast-food, vegetarian who thinks these pro-natalism and pro-carnivorism ads absolutely nailed it. I love the photography style. The copy is brilliant. It doesn’t make me want Burger King, but it does inspire me to make great work.
Well done, BBH London.

Oh, and somebody give this guy a raise.