Burger King's moldy Whopper ad is dividing marketing experts
www.cnbc.com
Burger King made headlines when it launched its latest ad — showing a Whopper going moldy — on Wednesday. But featuring mold in a food ad breaks all the rules of meal promotion, which usually involves beautifully-shot items that have been set up by stylists. CNBC spoke to several experts to get their reactions.

TIL that in 2020, Burger King ran an advertising campaign featuring a picture of a moldy Whopper, to prove that their burgers are made without preservatives. This unconventional advertising method worked, increasing sales by 14% (according to multiple sources.)

  • ChrisEnglish
    841·
    4 months ago

    Reminds me of the guy who bought the last ever Big Mac in Iceland, and put it on display and it didn’t go mouldy.

    Don’t know how true that is but it’s a good story!

    • Zerlyna@lemmy.worldEnglish
      632·
      4 months ago

      There was a book by Morgan Spurlock that told how a man put an extra cheeseburger in his winter coat, only to forget it, and found it in the same condition the following year. My stepkids didn’t believe me, so I put one on the mantel where it sat for months… unchanged. No smell. After about six months they believed me and begged me to throw it out. They refused to eat McDonalds after that.

      • dsco@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        23·
        4 months ago

        I used to work next to small commercial bakery, and they would give us stuff from time to time if it was near the sell-by date and they hadn’t scheduled a shipment.

        One day they gave us some of those tiny vending packs of muffins, the ones with two little colorful things in plastic. They were awful. So bad we bet that even the ants wouldn’t touch them if we left it out.

        It’s been three years now and that muffin is still there, identical to the day we set it down (not counting the dust).

      • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        8·
        4 months ago

        I did this in my car by accident multiple times way back in the day (like 2004). Stop for food after work, eat the fries and forget about the burger, which gets buried under stuff (I keep my car generally cleaner these days; I was a teen). It dries out completely with no actual change in appearance, smell, nothing but turning rock hard. Gross.

        Needless to say, I haven’t eaten there in almost 20 years, other than an occasional fries on a road trip when that’s all there is.

    • tpihkal@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      4 months ago

      I don’t know if it would work with a Big Mac but I’m curious to know. I imagine the lettuce would have to mold, but McDonald’s shreds their lettuce so maybe it would have time to dry out ¯_(ツ)_/¯

      I know it’s been done with a McDonald’s burger and fries before though, and I think it looked the same after a decade or more.