Burger King's Ad Showed Its Whopper Turning Moldy After 34 Days And It's Marketing Genius

The silent majority of advertising campaigns thrive on desire. Take food, for instance. You'd notice how people spend pretty pennies just to ensure that their food looks good on the screen. The gloss of greasy burgers, the colors of pizza toppings, the tantalizing swirl of noodles; every little element is a captivating trigger for our taste buds. No one wants to show tiny bugs that might be lurking in a box of cereal or a burger that has gone moldy. Except Burger King. In a video shared on Anthony Kalamut's (@AnthonyKalamut) channel, you can watch Burger King’s viral ad campaign “The Moldy Whopper.”

With this 2020 ad, Burger King shattered the norms of the advertising world, causing a stir around the world. Instead of tapping into people’s desire, the ad hit the logical and rational part of their brains. In place of the good-old stunt that would make the brand win a shiny trophy, the ad did something simple, like, say, pulling the thread of people’s common sense. Logic says that a food left for long in the open will eventually rot and decompose. The shimmer of buttery glaze or the golden crispiness of freshly baked is not something that will last forever, except in photographs, of course.

Instead of depicting a freshly-grilled burger slinging with luscious-looking vegetable ribbons, dollops of melty sauces, and sesame-topped buns that glisten with butter, the brand took a hard-headed approach to illustrate their showstopping whopper burger. In a time-lapse video, spanning 34 days, the ad encapsulated the journey of their signature “Whopper” and its gradual development of gross symptoms after being abandoned in the open air.   

The ad opened with a burger freshly tossed and put together by Burger King’s chefs – Freshly grilled patty, milky cheese, and a menagerie of color-popping veggies squeezed inside two crispy-looking golden buns sprinkled with sesame seeds. The burger was placed on a pedestal stand in front of a camera that would observe and record the changes in its demeanor for all these days. As days went by, the buns started to sag. As vegetables began to decompose and cheese began to melt, the upper bun turned droopy, giving a lethargic look to the burger.

With passing days, this bun kept on stooping lower and lower, as the contents beneath it kept on dying. The patty became matted with a foamy veneer, which soon turned from white to pale green. Like towers of mist, this veneer started rising. Tiny mold towers jutted upwards from the patty, soon engulfing the central jungle of vegetables and cheese. The leaves, which were bright emerald green at the beginning, now appear to be turning yellowish and wilting. Eventually, the moldy spindrift reached the upper bun, tinting its edges in a bluish haze. Meanwhile, the bun’s top layer resembled a barren desert bowl devoid of fresh life. Poor sesame babies disappeared somewhere in the dustiness.

By Day 34, the burger turned into a heroine of a dark fantasy movie with her body laced with smudges of blue poison, dead leaves, and scarred edges. “The beauty of no artificial preservatives,” this message flashed on the screen. Such an honest depiction of their product has stamped the most important thing brands want to see in their customers: trust. The next time someone stops by Burger King to grab a Whopper, they know that they’re safe. As a bonus, these days, Toothless, the dragon himself, is breathing out fire to grill all your Whoppers. So, go ahead and nosh!