Male Millennial, Gen-X Opps: Burger King launches new campaign (Score 79)

Sales Lead: Burger King (BK)'s new ad for the Chicken Royale is arguably the funniest fast food campaign of the year so far.

• The humor-based work looks sarcastically at the way that Whopper advertising still falls flat.
• Made by AOR BBH, the campaign also involves a nationwide experiential activation, Chicken Royale Day.
• The campaign rolled out across OOH and print.
• The company will likely:
  • Invest in similar initiatives in the future
  • Continue increasing national TV spend
  • Conduct additional agency reviews following a recent appointment (more below)
• Target demographic: 
  • Millennial and Gen-X men

Additional spending insights:

• Broadcast insights (TV ad creative spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: Since the beginning of 2023, BK has allocated roughly $102.9m toward national TV commercials, 16% more than the roughly $88.8m allocated within the same 2022 timeframe.
  • Last year: The brand allocated around $198.4m toward this channel in 2022 after having allocated 7% less, around $185.3m, in 2021.
  • 2023 ad programming: BK's 2023 commercials have targeted male sports enthusiasts watching shows such as NFL Football, NBA Basketball, College Football, SportsCenter, and Vanderpump Rules.
• Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: The brand has spent approximately $21.4m on digital ads YTD, 30% less than the approximately $30.6m spent by this point last year.
  • YTD data: So far this year, BK has earned ~1.8bb digital impressions via YouTube (75%), Facebook (15%), Instagram (9%), and mobile display (1%) ads.
  • Last year: The brand's estimated full-year 2022 spend, $58.7m, reached 75% more than that of $33.5m in 2021.
• Additional channel insights  
  • BK utilizes Google Ads along with OOH, local broadcast, digital, print, radio, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and online video (primarily via Youtube.com) ads.
  • The brand sponsors podcasts such as The Glenn Beck Program, The Joe Rogan Experience, The Herd with Colin Cowherd, The Matt Walsh Show, and My Favorite Murder.

Additional agency insights:

• Opportunity: If you haven't yet done so, reach out soon to see if creative, media, digital analytics, social media management, experiential, multicultural, and/or influencer agency hires follow BK's recent hires of PR AOR ICR and multicultural agency partner Conill Advertising.
  • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​BK also named Pat O'Toole as its CMO in January 2023.
• Current agency roster:
  • BBH: Creative AOR
  • ICR: Consumer PR AOR (March 2023)
  • Conill: Multicultural agency partner (March 2023)
  • O'Keefe Reinhard & Paul: Creative AOR (August 2022)
  • PHD USA: Media AOR (August 2022)
  • 360i: Social and digital AOR

Insight Sources: Broadcast insights estimated by iSpot; digital spend insights estimated by Pathmatics; additional channel insights estimated by Vivvix; podcast insights by Podchaser.