Burger King is having a mid-life crisis.
Dear Burger King,
Please stop embarrassing yourselves.
Love,
Scott
They’ve been on this downhill slalom of stupidity ever since the company went private again (Full disclosure: former shareholder here). Prices have skyrocketed, and they have this frat boy at a Lilith Fair mentality where they think that if they pretend to be sensitive, they’ll score with chicks.
Guys, wake up. Burger King is like the Rush of fast food. Not all women hate them, but there’s a special breed of women that like them and you’re stuck with (blessed with, in my opinion) those women.
If Burger King wants to make a comeback, I can think of a few ways they could do it. Open letter to anyone working for BK on Todd’s friends list (you never know):
1. Roll back the prices. There’s no excuse whatsoever for doubling prices on some menu items in a down economy.
2. Stop changing the fries every few years. Remember the old fries, the ones you were concerned were too much like McDonald’s before you tried to be “too much like McDonald’s” on purpose? We want those back.
3. Stop wasting cardboard. Wendy’s started doing it 6 months before you did, and it sucked there too.
4. I don’t think you need to be the Spike TV/Axe Body Spray of fast food, in fact, please don’t be that. However, those of us who do still eat at Burger King expect a certain vibe from it. It’s down-home without being “country”, it does not involve bright, California marketing exec-friendly colors, and it is kinda rugged and rough around the edges. The burgers are flame-broiled. That’s your hook, right? Let us see the grill. Show us some bricks in the interior of the restaurant. Working class folks don’t want Mary J. Blige singing about snack wraps, and to be frank, we kinda hate David Beckham’s guts. I don’t know if they eat at your restaurant or eat meat, period, but if they do and they’re game, give us Jim Gandolfini. Give us Brian Urlacher. Give us Jason Statham (actually, Statham’s vegan, I believe, but he’s not the only legit badass guy with an accent in the world; Tom Hardy?) if you really want an attractive British guy in your commercials. Tough, no bullshit, a little rough around the edges, but authentic and lovable. That’s how we see your restaurant and want to continue to see it, not that other shit.
5. Hot dogs: it’s time for one of the big 3 to step up and do them right. Partner with a leading organic meat company like Applegate Farms, who make great meats but don’t serve people slop. You want to embrace that delusion that women like to hear certain words in your marketing? How’s “organic” sound?
I’ll probably repost this over at my site and on my feed, but yeah, as a lifelong Burger King patron, this one’s kinda personal to me.