BURGER KING FEATURES ANDY WARHOL FOR ITS SUPER BOWL LIII COMMERCIAL

Which is that one advert on your screen that gets you hooked always? Adverts appeal to viewers in different ways for instance an advert could be appealing because it is hilarious or the person advertising the product is your favorite celebrity among many other reasons. Adverts influence our selection of product or services and it is the objective of every advertiser to ensure that the advert gets the point home and the product off the shelves.

Burger King is an American global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants and  is also  the fifth-largest fast food chain with numerous locations in the world. The burger chain has been advertising in very unique ways from advertising its delivery service with actual car accidents to fiercely throwing jabs at its largest competitor, McDonald’s. This time round the Burger King’s Super Bowl commercial leaves you thinking “okay, that was it?” You would actually think that something catchy would happen in the ad but there is none really.

The Burger king Super Bowl commercial has featured the iconic artist Andy Warhol. Warhol was a well-known legendary painter, sculptor and filmmaker and was also the leading figure in the visual art movement known as Pop art. The 45-seconds commercial simply shows Warhol silently unwrapping the burger from a burger king bag adding a little ketchup and eating it. In a press statement, Burger King said “the spot is meant to break through the tradition of super bowl commercial break filled with explosions, slapstick jokes and celebrities with an almost silent, yet powerful work of art.” The ad is really simple and as they say, Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Interestingly, the clip that has been used in the burger commercial was part of a film “66 Scenes from America” by Director Jorgen Leth in 1982 and was meant to highlight different aspects of the modern American society. However, Burger King had obtained approval from the Andy Warhol Foundation to use the clip as the advert. The giant fast food restaurant is now inviting Americans to enjoy their whoopers using the hashtag #EatLikeAndy

Burger King wanted its consumers to know that whoppers are for everyone; the wealthy, the famous, the poor, the athletes and the artists and that is the reason why they used Andy Warhol. Warhol on the other hand once said “What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest.” I tend to believe that these two statements are more or less passing the same information.

The irony of the advert is that Warhol might not really have been a big fan of Burger King Whoppers but instead he was a fun of its competitor McDonald’s because he once wrote in his book, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol “The most beautiful thing in Stockholm is the McDonalds. The most beautiful thing in Florence is the McDonald’s.” The advert has raised different reactions but basically the point was to get more buyers for the Burger King Whoppers; both the wealthy and the poor.

Here’s some food for thought, would Warhol actually agree to do an advert for Burger King Whoppers if he were still alive or would he still be a fun of McDonald’s?