Burger King, Whopper Freakout: D+

What would happen if Burger King discontinued the Whopper?

That's the question posed in this campaign for Burger King. To find out, they stopped selling Whoppers at one BK for one day. The results? Not hilarious. Not outrageous. In fact, there was barely any freaking out. I think what they found for most of the day was that when you tell America the Whopper is discontinued, the reaction is, "oh, well, I guess I'll have two of that similar smaller shitty burger."

Then, as if a flawed concept wasn't enough, they try and turn it into some sort of online viral campaign by asking consumers to go to whopperfreakout.com in order to see people freaking out. This teaser ran all weekend and, in order to write this review, I thought I'd check it out.



So the teaser got me to the site, where I was even more disappointed. The "freakouts" are marginally funny, at best. And it's seriously a stretch to label any of the reactions a "freakout." But I guess "Whopper Surprised and Mildly Annoyed" didn't have the same kind of ring to it. To save you the time and effort required to visit the shit site (where there is only this lame video) I've posted it here. You're welcome.



I'm guessing the producers of this elaborate hoax weren't exactly thrilled with the mundane responses of real people. It was so unsuccessful, they decided to book a second day with an even less intriguing premise. What happens if people order the Whopper but get something else? Huh? I can tell you what'll happen, they'll be annoyed that they didn't get what they ordered. Not because the Whopper is great, but because people get pissed when some bone-headed register jockey fucks up their order. If they really wanted to surprise people, they should have put a dead bird in their bags.

Now, if the Big Mac went away, I think you'd see some serious freaking out.