I haven’t eaten in a Burger King
restaurant in more than
twenty years. When I did frequent this fast-food chain, I preferred it to its
chief competitor, McDonald’s. The reason I did was that Burger King enabled me
to have my burgers “my way.” That is, I could “hold the pickles…hold the
lettuce” and everything else without a big to-do. I ordered my burgers plain
and ate them plain. At McDonald's, ordering a plain hamburger invariably initiated panic among the staff. I could never quite understand why
getting a plain hamburger was such an ordeal. It would seem to me the simplest
kind of order in a burger joint. But not, I suppose, when the burgers are born
with pickles, ketchup, and chopped onions on them. I remember receiving “plain”
burgers that had undergone a crude scraping
off of the aforementioned fixings. Fully scraping off ketchup and
chopped onions is well nigh impossible—and forget about the pickle taste.
That was then and this is now. I no longer patronize fast-food
burger chains. Still, I was interested in the news that Burger King is
scrapping its longstanding “Have It Your Way” slogan and replacing it with—drum
roll, please—“Be Your Way.” Now, I don’t know what on earth that means. I do
know that it’s a ridiculous reflection of the ridiculous times in which we
live. How much money did this burger conglomerate invest to re-brand itself? McMahon and Tate. I daresay, would have delivered something a little more
sensible for a lot less money.
In unveiling their new twenty-first century slogan, senior
vice president of global brand management Fernando Merchado said, “We want to
evolve from just being the functional side of things to having a much stronger
emotional appeal.” How’s that? You sell hamburgers and French fries. How about serving better food
with better service? Somehow in this day and age everything has to be about making a statement. Everything has to have some kind
of narrative beyond the obvious. What does Burger King and a person’s “greater
lifestyle” have to do with one another? Absolutely nothing. Where is the Duke
of Doubt when we need him?
