Imagine a World Without Whoppers

Photos

Double Whopper

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Videos

Burger King Whopper Freak Out Commercial

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sourced by Jordan Yerman

No, not the candy, but the fast-food item.

In the US, there's a commercial hitting the airwaves depicting customers at Burger King being told they cannot have a Whopper. This defeats the whole purpose of fast food: you stand in a queue, you ask for what you want, the uniformed employee hands it to you, you pay, you walk/drive away...

But what if that didn't happen? Burger King's World Without Whoppers campaign imagines just such a warped version of the service economy.

Actors were hired to work in select BK locations, and the director of the commerical singles out "interesting-looking" or local customers who will be told they cannot have a Whopper. Reactions vary from "Whatever" to "WTF", and the results are compiled into a film (with attendant TV spots) on whopperfreakout.com. Of course, this requires:
1. Not being found out;
2. Getting the actors to actually prepare the food;
3. Getting the customer to sign a release so that their footage can be used in a TV spot;
4. Not letting everyone else in the place know what you're up to.

I'm no fan of fast food, am not affiliated with Burger King, and I find commercial work to be boring, but this campaign fascinates me because it is definitely the most complex advert shoot I've ever heard of, and it has no crowds or special effects. Also, the actors portraying the fast-food employees are totally believable, capturing that "Not-my-decision-talk-to-the-manager thing beautifully.

Here, the creator of the spot discusses the process.

(This juicy tidbit was sent my way by the mysterious Morbus Iff. He sees all, which means that he must weather the occasional commercial interruption)