Sex Sells… Even Burgers – Burger King UK Released “the world’s first guilt-free shower-cam”
Burger King UK must be in desperate need of PR, any PR that is. Burgers don’t sell in the morning, apparently, and the company decided to lure male consumers with a “shower babe” who “shakes her bits to the hits at 9.30am every morning.” The campaign, called “glorious mornings” runs on www.singingintheshower.co.uk, where “the world’s first guilt-free shower-cam” shows a young woman, summary dressed (wearing a Burger King designer bikini), singing in the shower. The site is aimed at visitors over 18 years of age, exclusively male, who are also invited to enter a daily competition to win a date with the “sizzling shower babe.” The “seriously lucky” winners will get to share a couple of Breakfast Big Fillers and pancakes with the actress of the spots in the London Leicester Square Burger King® restaurant. The message doesn’t stop here, visitors are further persuaded to enter the competition with the message “you never know, it just might be the start of something beautiful (and she might even sing for you)!”
Media reactions to the campaign followed promptly, AdAge noted the “blatantly male bias of the campaign” and calls the ad the “Subservient Shower Girl.”
Interestingly, the news about this campaign followed a recent release by Burger King UK and Ireland, in which marketing director Sarah Power stated: “We want to remind customers why they love Burger King and its burgers. With slogans such as ‘substance over style’ and ‘taste is king’ we are looking to make a real brand impact and attract customers as they do their festive and New Year sales shopping.” But, we now learn from the same marketing director the real reason why Brits love Burger King: “Our shower-cam gives hungry Brits the chance to watch the BK Shower Girl singing in the shower every day to help them work up an appetite for our fantastic new breakfast range.” Right, we all needed a half naked woman singing in the shower to grow an appetite for BK hamburgers. Sure thing, the male audience might get an appetite after watching the shower babe “shaking her bits to the hits at 9.30am every morning” … although I doubt this will involve breakfast at BK.
With such PR, BK will soon change its profile, becoming world’s greatest peep show portal… burgers will naturally become complimentary rewards, “on the house” for the most faithful voyeurs attending. Brilliant. (!) And this is how, during hard times, companies manage to survive. And if you want to see even more, take a look at the auditions for this campaign. Note that the PR company that devised the campaign is Cow PR (named so because “we’re not sheep, because we don’t do factory farmed PR, and we don’t give you the usual bull.”) Indeed, a peep show is not the usual bull. It’s just BS.
Alison Brod Communications serves as Public Relations firm of record for Burger King in the United States.
