The Best Burger Ads of All Time
The humble hamburger is the world’s most common fast food. It has been the foundation of several multi-billion dollar businesses around the world. All of which rely on advertising to drive hungry customers to their counters and drive-thru windows rather than the competing brand right next door.
The food is the very definition of ‘cheap and cheerful’.
Over the years, some great pieces of work have been made. But what are often quotes as ‘classics’ in burger advertising have dated horribly. Anyone that mentions ‘where’s the beef’ instantly ages themselves out of a contemporary conversation about great advertising.
So, here is our list of the best advertising that took the humble burger, and elevated it to something iconic.
Table of Contents
There is a tonne of retail work in the category too
That’s true of many product categories, but it’s particularly true for hamburgers.
Retail and offer-driven promotions are a major part of the business. So much so that often the major burger chains will split that part of the advertising function into a separate agency. Or, if the main agency wants to keep the business, they will set up a specific retail division inside the agency to take care of it.
Do your best not to sneer at this part of the business. It will never win the metal at the award shows, but it is incredibly important. Not only is it a huge business driver for the client, it is a major profit center for the agency.
Further in the article, I’ll showcase some great retail pieces that have made huge difference to their clients.
My Personal favourite Burger Ad of all time
I apologise about the quality of the video. It is an old one. But the quality of the ad itself is brilliant. Not just for it’s daring. Because it is incredibly daring. Not just because it’s hilarious. And it is.
What sets this apart is the way a brilliant creative solution brought a brand on the brink back to life. In 1994 Jack In A Box had just suffered a massive food hygiene scandal, and the way forward was unsure.
The campaign was kicked off with the mascot undergoing plastic surgery in the ‘Jacks Back’ ad (shown below this one) while informing us that he was coming back to reclaim the company.
It was a fresh attitude that immediately endeared itself to the market. This showcased piece of work is part of that initial batch of work.
The agency knocked it out of the park with this one.
I know some of this other work may seem dated. But you can see how a tone of voice is able to set a brand apart with these examples. There are thousands of these ads, I’m just sharing these other two, which are among the best.
This first one below is the ad that kicked of the reinvention in the wake of the hygiene scandal.
Burger Advertising to the Family
It’s no secret that burgers aren’t brussel sprouts and brown rice. Burgers are a special treat for the kids and a break for mom and dad.
Some of the best pieces of work in the category lean into this. The work is warm, joyous and memorable. Here are some of my favourites.
The following was made to promote delivery
But the familial joy comes out beautifully. I love this campaign from 2023. It’s a very simple premise that was executed beautifully. It was only awarded Bronze at Cannes, but the judging at Cannes is a funny beast. In a different year it easily could have been gold.
Building affection for the brand in the parents
The following ad was actually re-made for many different markets. Large brands will do that quite often if they land on something that really hits with the intended audience. This was the first to do it. Never awarded. But sometimes the work that hits best with the audience gets overlooked by, to be frank, snobbish juries that prefer to award novelty over impact.
And a Grand Prix winner
The ultimate household hack, thanks to Burger King. Sometimes you don’t need a huge production budget. Just a cheeky, simple idea. It deserved it’s Grand Prix.
Burger Advertising to Workers
Lunchtime has become the most lucrative meal for fast food – and particularly for burgers. Which is why so much great work has gone into this occasion. It is curious that pizza has become the ‘late night office’ food in the mind of the market, whereas burgers have claimed lunchtime.
This first one is from a while back, but it’s the best in this category that I know. It taps into the nostalgia for a McDonalds meal perfectly.
Using a mnemonic
If you’ve been working in an agency for any length of time, you would have heard about mnemonics. Clients and account people love them. Creative’s reflexively shrink from them. Because they can be cheesy. But, if done well, they can build a brand incredibly effectively.
Using the work setting to describe a feature
This concept could have been set anywhere – a park, a family home. But they chose to place it in the workplace. It shows you how important that lunchtime occasion is for the burger market.
Competitive Burger Advertising
More than any other brand, Burger King like to lean into this style of advertising.
It’s a classic strategy of the number two brand in a market. Whereas the market leader likes to pretend that competitors don’t exist, challengers will attack the leadership with direct comparisons. Some of the best work in the category fits in here.
McWhopper
This one is genius. It’s an incredibly provocative campaign that gained an outsized amount of attention for the budget. Burger king came up with the idea of a ‘truce’ with McDonalds on World Peace Day where they both would create a hybrid burger.
The Whopper Detour
Burger King got digital faster than it’s competitors. This was a great little promotional campaign in the USA where you had to first be close to a McDonalds restaurant to unlock a one cent whopper coupon at Burger King.
It drove a huge amount of app downloads and drove a bunch of media exposure for the brand. It’s actions like this that make Burger King look young and energetic – in contrast to their competitor.
The Hidden Big Mac
I adore the sheer chutzpah of this campaign. For a whole year Burger King UK hid a Big Mac behind every single one of their ad shoots. And then revealed what they were doing with this campaign.
Product Based Burger Advertising
Sometimes you’ll be asked to promote a particular product in the range rather than the brand as a whole. When it’s done well, the brand basks in the reflected glow. This first piece for McDonalds fries went global in the early 90’s and did wonders for the business. It’s still fresh today. (Apologies for the picture quality of the video).
Next is a more recent piece that launches an imitation meat burger for Burger King. The visual direction is next level.
This next piece is one of the greatest campaigns of all time. Burger King were promoting their chicken range early in the internet age. And this piece of brilliance was the result. If you don’t know the Subservient Chicken campaign, your creative director definitely does. This is one of the most iconic campaigns from the past 50 years.
Finally in this category, it’s a cute little piece promoting late night delivery from 2021. It’s probably not one of the greatest burger ads of all time, but hell, I like it. So I’m including it.
Retail Burger Advertising
The day-to-day advertising that isn’t as glamorous or awarded is much more important to a burger chain client. Because it drives immediate foot traffic. Which is what the franchisees – who pay hefty fees every month to head office – demand of the marketing team.
The trick is to make it catchy, memorable, and most of all aligned. Every piece of communications is a lego brick in an enormous sculpture of the brand. The below from Burger King is the best in category. It will last a few years for sure. But, like every brand positioning, one day it will feel dated and will need refreshing. Picking that moment is an incredibly difficult decision for the marketing team at the brand as well as for the agency.
And here is the brand refresh video that brought the typographic freshness to the pieces. No-one involved in creating the foundations of this work is going to win an award for it. But, here’s the dirty secret you don’t hear much, they’re probably getting paid much better for it. Retail advertising is underrated. If you are given a retail brief, don’t groan. You can learn a great deal about business and the role of advertising with these projects.
Did we miss one?
We’d love this to be a comprehensive resource, so if you think there’s a campaign we’ve missed that deserves to be here, please reach out and we’ll do our best to include it.
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