Shaun Lucas
Editor In Chief
A recent survey by Thumbwind revealed that college students spend an average of 17 hours per week scrolling social media. From a marketing perspective, that is a lot of time for students to see advertisements between their various followed accounts. The best advertisements, ironically, are posts that feel natural enough to be made for free, yet entertaining enough to help keep the brand in mind.
During the 2022 NFL season, Burger King aired its “You Rule” commercial, spawning a campaign featuring people singing about how you can “have it your way” with imagery of burgers scrolling across the screen. The commercials and their songs are simple and catchy, just perfect to be repeated many times without it getting annoying. We all have that commercial that after around three plays, you never want to hear again.
These commercials have played a lot, and I am still not over it; the ads became viral, also spawning a string of memes mixing up the singer’s voice. Despite criticizing AI generated voices in an article last edition, I do find these memes genuinely funny.
Not only were these posts funny, but as I mentioned, they got in my head: I found myself sending memes to my friends, humming the song in my head, quoting some of the memes’ lyrics that changed up the original lyrics. But beyond spreading the good word of Burger King without even realizing what I was doing, I did just what Burger King wanted me to do: I bought Burger King’s food.
One sleepless night after having the ads’ song stuck in my head, I woke up and decided that for lunch, I would get Burger King. I ended up buying three plain cheeseburgers and a large fry. It was delicious, and I even sent a picture of my order to the same friends I sent the memes to. At that moment, Burger King had created an ideal customer, who probably inspired at least one other person to buy a burger within the last month.
Perhaps the most humorous part of the ordeal is that my stomach does not even handle burgers well, and I know it doesn’t. But I still bought those burgers, and last week, I got Burger King for lunch and a late night snack within the same day. I spent around $20 in one day on food, all going to my local Burger King that has three stars on Apple Maps.
A crucial aspect to the campaign’s success is it struck a perfect balance between being a good advertisement and an entertaining video. I never felt forced to listen to the “You Rule” song, just like I never felt forced to send the videos and eat the burgers. Also, you can tell when a commercial really wanted to be a meme, as it feels very disingenuous.
Will a catchy song stop the frustration that arises from Burger King getting your order wrong again? For me, maybe, but maybe not for others. For the moment, I am going to ride the Burger King train, enjoying my tasty burgers and fries on nights where I either don’t want to cook or get home too late to eat at a real restaurant.
Considering Burger King is planning to invest around $150 million into advertising and digital for the next two years due to the campaign’s success, per Marketing Week, I have a feeling we will be seeing more golden commercials from the brand, along with some other fast food restaurants following in the brand’s footsteps.
