The BIG Kahuna

In an effort to keep making horrible ads that have nothing to do with whatever Burger King’s brand identity is they’ve come out with this pile of crap:

Let’s not forget their past insulting work here, Mexican get sizzled, and here, Slap that booty.

Obviously the only branding strategy Burger King can come up with is to be controversial. Brilliant.

So I’m out of the Burger King loop. They obviously want people in the business to write negatively about them because what women is gonna run out and buy this sandwich now? And do men really think they’ll get a blow job? No, the only thing Burger King wants is press, so stop giving it to them, they don’t deserve it.

Ads are meant to do one thing…sell product, period.

I saw two new commercials yesterday. Ford came out with their new branding. Here it is:

Our cars are quality and as reliable as Toyota or Honda. Brilliant huh? I’ll bet my yearly paycheck that if I went out and asked 100 regular Americans where they thought Ford’s quality rated amongst Honda, Toyota and a few others they would rank near the bottom.

Why does Ford persist on trying to change their poor brand image?  They should focus on core strengths not weaknesses. But they can’t focus (pardon the pun) on strengths because they have absolutely no brand identity!

Volvo owns safety (owned by Ford), BMW owns driving, Mercedes own luxury, what does Ford or GM own? Shouldn’t they own “American”? Like the Mustang/Corvette muscle cars? Americans will buy that product all day long (good gas mileage or not). It’s not about being green or gas mileage, it’s about wants and desires and fulfilling them.

GM came out with their even more ridiculous “be everything to everyone” campaign.

We’re smaller, more nimble. We’re gonna focus on cars that get better gas mileage, greener blah, blah blah.

C’mon GM, seriously? When is the auto industry going to learn that green cars, better mileage doesn’t really matter. It matters when gas is at $5/gallon but it’s quickly forgotten when gas is at $2/gallon. People buying Hummers didn’t buy them because they got great gas mileage or were trying to be green.

Developing and owning a brand identity is what has made auto makers like Volvo, BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, Honda, Toyota and others successful. They each offer a differentiating factor not a “me too” factor like our American Auto Industry. Do you think Toyota would say their quality is as good as Ford’s?

What do you say Kahunas?

We don’t participate in RFP’s. We don’t do spec work. We often lose business because of it. Good riddance, it wasn’t business worth having. Here’s a really funny video of the things prospects try and pull over on agencies. The sad thing is agencies often cave.