Rotten Genius! How Burger King’s Moldy Whopper Ad flipped the script on Negative Marketing

In a world where food ads are typically flawless, Burger King took a leap of faith; straight into “Moldy Whooper”! It wasn’t just a bold move, it was brilliantly risky.

The 2020 campaign that featured a decaying burger for 35 days, covered in green mold and fuzz, broke every rule in the book. But this wasn’t just about shock value but about making a powerful statement. Burger King’s “Moldy Whopper” campaign was a masterclass in negative marketing, which is a strategic way of marketing the negatives of a product to ultimately infer the positives in it.

By letting the world see their burger rot, Burger King set out to show that their food is devoid of artificial preservatives. The tagline, “The beauty of no artificial preservatives,” flipped the game on traditional food advertising that previously focused on what happens after the sales rather than before. This honest approach penetrated the customer base for its sheer honesty.

This had a profound and immediate impact across the globe. Social media started flooding in with polarised conversations thus generating 8.4 billion impressions and setting a new standard of authenticity in the world of advertising by generating an Earned Media Value (EMV) of $40 million. While many viewers gave it a red flag, much more appreciated Burger
King’s effort to prove one point” Quality over Aesthetics”.

Soon, sales skyrocketed, with a 14% rise in same-store sales in the following quarter of 2020 as the number of customers who valued authentic ingredients jumped onto the bandwagon. The ad then went on to win numerous awards but most importantly earned Burger King a place in the cultural zeitgeist as a brand unafraid to shatter the glass ceilings.

Fernando Machado, the then CMO of Burger King and a marketing genius was the mastermind behind this iconic ad and thus proved that if in the right hands, even the most unappetizing image can be turned into a marketing triumph. All of this also increased the brand sentiment by a whopping 88%.

This was only made possible “Because the most powerful stories are the ones that aren’t afraid to show the flaws”.