31 January 2008: Burger King = Men

Today a group of my male friends and I discussing the BK King NFL ad. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An7Uv2xa614. The men could not understand that I do not understand this ad. As a result, I decided to investigate it more fully. The ad flows as follows:

It is before the snap. The camera pans to a tied scoreboard. The quarterback takes the snap, draws back, releases, and then, suddenly, from out of nowhere comes an interception made by the BK King. He runs towards and dives into the end zone. As he celebrates, a voice over says: "The King is going all out. Laying it on the line with BK chicken fries. Score the new all white meat 12 piece today." End commercial with the BK king doing a celebratory strut.

First, my first memory of Burger King occurs as a child playing in the Burger King giant play hamburger. It was fun, but not as fun as the McDonalds playground. It also did not have as good of a happy meal toy. As a child, the happy meal toy and the playplace is critical to fast food success. As an adult, Burger King was where you went to have a slightly higher quality of food than you would find at McDonalds or if you had a taste for a Whopper instead of a Big Mac. However, my family primarily went to McDonalds, because my mother liked Big Mac more than Whopper. Furthermore, at that time, McDonalds had better fries than Burger King. As an adult, Burger King was the only fast foot option on my college campus. I distinctly remember living off of fries every Thursday. Burger King became my preferred fast food choice. It infused my joy of being busy with music rehearsals and college.

The Burger King logo uses a large rounded font with increased font size on the word King. Burger reminds me of being a child and eating outside during the summer. Fast food burgers remind me of a special treat. As a result, I am very attracted to the word 'burger.' However, the word 'King' can have multiple meanings. For me, traditionally, it takes a historical connotation as a 'ruler.' This is the ruler of burgers. To take that a step further, in mythological, king's were Gods on earth. This burger then is a god on earth. However, for many men, take that concept to refer to masculinity. This masculinity is further represented by the large words sandwiched between two round bun halves. The size of the logo represents the size of the meat. This is a real sandwich. Men might take this logo to mean that it is a man's sandwich. Finally, the blue arc that surrounds the sandwich on the right side serves both as a symbol of royalty (the royal blue), as an indication of speed, and finally, of a wrapper that holds the entire sandwich. This sandwich is one that you can hold in one hand. Men may feel that holding a sandwich in one hand is more masculine.

How does this relate to the ad? When I see the aforementioned ad, all I see is a 'stupid' guy dressed up as a king with a funny mask. The mask of the BK king reminds me of films I use to see as a child. The football game reminds me of changing the channels from football as a child. I just do not understand it. One of my guy friends told me that this is because I am not suppose to. He told me that this ad plays upon guys' memories of stupid things that they have done, especially when drinking. "Don't you remember that time when we were drunk and decided to shave our heads?" "Don't you remember the time when we put masks on our heads and decided to streak across campus." This ad plays upon the emotion of masculine initiation. As 'On Paradise Drive specifies, "90% of Americans have way too much self-esteem." We also live "in the world of self-reinforcing clique communities. . . . to "overrate thyself." That is why this ad is unique to American males. The rest of the world lacks the same initiation concept of America as American immigrants often had to 'initiate' themselves into American culture. The rest of this ad plays on the masculine initiation of 'laying it all out' all while selling a new product. Perhaps I do not understand this ad, but at least I have more insight into the persona of men.