Let’s go back to making ads for consumers – not each other
The problem with marketing today, is that it's marketing to other marketers, not consumers, argues Public Address' Shane Allison - and nothing proves this more than the "abject failure" of the collaboration between Burger King and McDonald's.
What do Dove’s real beauty, Dundee Movie, Black Supermarket and Dream Crazy have in common? They don’t feel like ads. The thing about great marketing is that consumers don’t feel like they’re being sold a product.
By this measure, Burger King failed abjectly when they dreamed up the ‘A day without whopper’ campaign to promote sales of the Big Mac on McHappy Day, the annual event where McDonald’s donates $2 from every one of its signature burgers sold to its charity.
The problem is, consumers everywhere know that if McDonald’s wanted too, they could just donate a bunch of cash to their charity. Same with Burger King – if they wanted to, they could.
The net impact on Burger King’s sales wasn’t huge, as customers already turned up to the fast food outlet and after getting annoyed, ordered something different. Same with McDonald’s – they didn’t go out of their way to grab a Big Mac, they just turned up to have their favourite burgers. The marketers behind this campaign would have already had a deep understanding of this consumer behaviour and known that there wouldn’t have been a business impact from it.
This is the problem with marketing today, and yet another example of marketers marketing to themselves, not to consumers.
Consumers can smell the whiff of self-indulgent marketing from a mile off. They get it when they’re being sold a pipe dream that is two marketing teams trying to out-creative each other.
So it frustrated me to see this campaign from 2017 making the rounds of social media again after Burger King made an offer to recycle McDonald’s plastic toys, with many of my colleagues from adland congratulating each other on the difference that can be made through advertising, and completely ignoring the fact that the community sees this as the shallow act it is.
Let’s be clear. I’m not against donating to charity. Ronald McDonald House Charities support 57,000 families every year and supporting a cause such as this is a great example of corporate philanthropy in action.
But let’s not pretend that there’s anything of real substance in either McHappy Day, or in this campaign from Burger King.
In 2018, Mastercard was condemned around the globe for its campaign which saw 10,000 meals for starving children donated every time Lionel Messi and Neymar scored. Why is this any different for McDonald’s, and why are we treating Burger King any differently when they jump on the act?
Goals that changes lives: for each goal scored by Messi or Neymar Jr. Mastercard will donate the equivalent of 10,000 meals to @WFP to fight childhood hunger and malnutrition in Latin America and the Caribbean #TogetherWeAre10 #StartSomethingPriceless https://t.co/URfIp77ElN pic.twitter.com/Ckq61oJgld
— Noticias Mastercard (@MastercardLAC) May 31, 2018
While we haven’t had the high-profile clangers of Pepsi and Kendall Jenner, there’s enough Australian campaigns that have been pulled in 2019 for offending swathes of the population, or just plain missing the mark, to diagnose the community with a serious case of introspection.
Let’s stop the navel gazing, look out of the bubble and spend less time creating campaigns to impress each other – or awards judges.
Shane Allison is the co-founder of Public Address
We should employ the tactics BK did with this add. Yes, we (marketers) can see through it, but this image has been shared across the world (in non-marketing press) so doesn’t that prove the point that the consumers liked it also. It’s a good idea and at least made me say ‘nice’. Nothing more, nothing less now let’s just move on.
User ID not verified.
“Consumers can smell the whiff of self-indulgent marketing from a mile off.”
Readers can smell the whiff of self-indulgent ‘opinion piece’ from a ‘founder’ mile off too.
User ID not verified.
Slightly off topic, I’m so sick of these constant “Burger King for latest x social issue” campaigns.
Fuck off – your core product is contributing to the growing obesity epidemic and all you can do is attempt to divert the viewers attention with pathetic shots at things like net neutrality and anti bullying.
The only ppl fooled by this insincere bullshit are probably the same ones who obsess over reality TV.
BK, you have no authority to speak on social issues and are doing it for likes.
User ID not verified.
Ha! … burrrn. (probably of the ‘Flame Grilled’ variety).
Well played Sir/Madam!
User ID not verified.
I appreciate that McD’s has RMHC which supports 50K + families… but wouldn’t they adversely ruin the lives of 100x that globally?
User ID not verified.
Readers can recognize the stink of anon wankers that don’t realise this is an industry blog from even further.
User ID not verified.
Those complaining about the product offerings of these two need to calm down. Firstly, we’re celebrating our craft here – not their business models – and secondly, why can’t there be a world where products like this exist? Imagine a world where everything that was ‘bad for you’ was banned, what a shit existence that would be.
I love this work and agree it’s what we should be striving for.
User ID not verified.
“Consumers can smell the whiff of self-indulgent marketing from a mile off.” Lol no. Consumers pay almost zero attention to 90% of ads, the majority of them don’t have any knowledge of marketing, they just know what they like and what they don’t, and most of them don’t even consciously know why they feel this way. To even think that an average consumer is going to think “thats a wanky ad by an adman trying to impress other admen” is so far off the truth that it just demonstrates your complete lack of consumer understanding. We can all agree that some ads are made for awards and industry credit, but don’t try and claim its a consumer concern.
User ID not verified.
Ok, so on “the craft”…. it’s such insincere work!
(and also, their products happen to be bad for you).
User ID not verified.
Yes, that is great idea!
User ID not verified.