RM Blog

All buzz-enhanced campaigns are not created equal. Here, the Most Interesting Man in the World goes head to giant head with Burger King.

Every marketer would like to get the media multiplier effect that comes from ads that create buzz. These are ads or online experiences that are so good, viewers will not only NOT tune them out or set their PVRs to avoid them, they’ll actively pass them on to friends – via Facebook, email, Twitter, or good-old-fashioned word of mouth.

Despite the old saying, ‘ all publicity is good publicity’, the numbers say that all buzz is not equal. Let’s look at two campaigns, each of which created terabytes of buzz in highly competitive industries.

First up, the recent* “Most Interesting Man in the World” TV campaign for Dos Equis beer by Euro RSCG New York. (See the TV and online here http://dosequis.com/.) Briefly, TMIMITW is a silver-haired Hemingway-esque man of the world, ladies man, and man’s man. Over faux archival footage of our hero’s ultra interesting life (freeing a bear from the steel jaws of a leg trap, arm wrestling a sweaty South American military dictator-type, enjoying a night-time boat ride with Miss Universe contestants – in evening wear) a narrator intones his exploits: He once had an awkward moment, just to see how it feels. He can speak French – in Russian. Police pick him up for questioning just because they find him so interesting. And so on.

TMIMITW has been a YouTube sensation.  And that certainly has played a part in making the campaign a massive marketing success. Sales of Dos Equis are way up in Canada – where beer  is losing ground to wine in the booze market (can you freaking believe it?).  In fact, in 2008, overall beer sales declined in Ontario but Dos Equis sales tripled.

Now let’s look at the work done for Burger King by the gods of cool creative, Crispin Porter + Bogusky. There was the granddaddy of “viral” pieces, ‘Subservient Chicken’, a grotesque big-headed Burger King cavorting with starlets, videos for the fictional chicken-headed thrash band, CoqRoq (get it?), and many more wickedly creative ideas and executions.

But CP+B has taken some heat recently when it was pointed out that their decade-long run of ultra inventive and ultra award-winning work has produced no gain in market share for Burger King.

Mitigating this are the facts that individual CP+B campaigns have produced spectacular sales successes and that Burger King hasn’t lost market share.  But still… any marketer would prefer the TMIMITW result to the CoqRoq result.

So, two campaigns that are likable enough to give them a leg up with free buzz media. But one produced better sales results. What’s the difference?  Here’s where it gets very subjective.

I would argue that  it’s all about how the ad or web concepts relate to the respective products they are trying to sell– not the brands, the products, what people open their wallets and pay money for.

While the Burger King material encompasses many individual ads, micro sites, interactive games across many campaigns, as a whole they went for the “edgy” approach. Funny stuff that often will make you squirm. It’s not friendly – it’s too cool for that. The subservient chicken piece encapsulates the overall ethos. It is a website that allows a user to play dominatrix (or dominator) to a stocking-clad chicken in a B—grade porn scenario. (Chicken, any way you like it. Get it?) It may have kitsch appeal but it does NOT, for this viewer, have chicken nugget appeal. Yuck.

On the other hand, with TMIMITW we are invited to sit at a table with our favorite uncle. He tells great stories, he’s wise, larger than life and funny. And he attracts other interesting (and, yes, very attractive) people into his orbit. He’s making me want to sit down and have a beer. Yum.

Sounds like typical beer ad stuff? Kinda. But the idea and execution are so refreshing it’s like seeing a drink-this-beer-and-you’ll-have-fun-like-these-beautiful-people ad for the first time.

Oh, and one more gem from the TMIMITW,  perhaps the brightest one: the sign off.  It’s delivered by our hero, sitting at a table, surrounded by women too beautiful for mortals. “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do I prefer Dos Equis. Stay thirsty my friends.” 25 seconds of zany hyperbole capped with a 100% relatable truth about the place and value of beer in most folks’ lives. The truth feels nice, in fact it’s worth passing on. And it’s making me thirsty.