ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS
In October 2005, Burger King began to sell Halloween masks resembling The King and Burger King's viral marketing characterThe Subservient Chicken. There was little promotion on these masks, as Burger King's website had no link to the bkmasks.com website and no commercials were aired advertising them. Nonetheless, the masks quickly sold out, and some masks were also sold on eBay for hundreds of dollars. In October 2006, the masks were again sold for the Halloween season. Unavailable for some time, the masks are now available again through Burger King's online shop. Although the advertisements were mainly shown in North America, advertisements featuring the King surfaced on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom as well as in Germany in early January 2006. The King appeared not to catch on with the UK market and was seemingly retired there after only two brief commercials (featuring him at an ATM and as a pole dancer). However, he returned in summer 2006 as part of Burger King's Superman Returns campaign. In September 2006, Burger King began using the original animated King design from the late 1960s and early 1970s commercials on its cups, bags and in non tie-in kids advertising. The second generation King is portrayed as a sarcastic type who sometimes gets in trouble for his mischief making adventures, and appears as a simplistic hand puppet. In July 2007, The King appeared in several commercials promoting The Simpsons Movie as a Simpsons' character, complete with four fingers, yellow skin and an overbite. The ad campaign for the BK Homestyle Melt sandwiches depicted a group of women, presumably mothers, who have attempted to kill the King though various means such as putting a hit on him or attempting to run over him with a car. It is implied this is done because the new products are moving in on the women's territory, home cooked meals. The character has appeared in the tie-in promotion of the film Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, commercials for a cross-promotions with the NFL and DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket sports subscription package. A further series of advertisements featuring Brooke Burke, which premiered during Super Bowl XL, featured the King orchestrating an elaborate Broadway-style show called "the Whopperettes": women dressed as burger condiments and toppings in a Ziegfeld Follies type production. The "Have it your way" slogan and "Creepy King" comment also made its way into the lyrics. In a 2007 commercial to promote the restaurant chain's new Western Whopper sandwich, the King is shown in full royal attire against an obviously fake backdrop of aSouthwestern desert, doing a jig-like dance to banjo music. His head is slightly modified so that he wears a handlebar mustache in the style of the Old West, and is juxtaposed with shots of Burger King customers who, upon consuming a Western Whopper, acquire similar mustaches regardless of age or gender. In 2007, Burger King introduced a television advertising campaign in which a Burger King restaurant in Las Vegas, Nevada told customers that the company had stopped selling the Whopper sandwich. The ads showed the startled reactions of customers that Burger King would discontinue selling its most popular sandwich. A second round of related commercials showed actual customers who had ordered a Whopper instead being provided with a Big Mac from McDonald's or a hamburger from Wendy's. After the customers complained to the Burger King restaurant manager, the King would emerge from the kitchen with a Whopper on a silver platter. All of the commercials that aired featured excerpts from a full-length video which can be seen at the official "Whopper Freakout" website here. In a 2008 commercial, which takes place in the future, a retro-futuristic robot version of the Burger King delivers a new breakfast wrap to a person who is waking up. The purpose of the advertisement was to market Burger King's new Cheesy Bacon BK Wrapper. An animated version of the Burger King appears at the beginning of each episode of Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, bursting through the movie screen and trying to escape from some kind of danger behind him, such as angry jungle natives, a dramatic explosion, etc. In 2009 the Burger King advertises a Kid's Meal cross promotion with SpongeBob to the tune of "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-a-lot. The lyrics are replaced by references toSpongeBob SquarePants. The Kingons are used to advertise the 2009 Star Trek film. The advertising and related Kingon Defense Academy web site states that they are an illegitimate offspring between the King and a Klingon woman. The Kingons are a trio of two males and one female that all feature the plastic mask of the King modified with features of the later Klingons, namely head ridges and Fu Manchu mustaches on the two males and the King's crown on all three. In 2010, The King a second attempt was made to launch in the UK, with a series of TV and newspaper commercials, starting a few days before his launch, with sneak peeks accompanied by the tag "He's Coming". NFL commercials Beginning in 2005, commercials featuring The King were created by digitally altering classic NFL game footage. The King is superimposed over players, making it appear as though the King was involved in the play. Some of the players the King has been imposed over include Steve Young, Deion Sanders, and Moe Williams (receiving a lateral passfrom Randy Moss). He has also been depicted performing the Lambeau Leap and dumping Gatorade on the head of former Miami Dolphins head coach Don Shula. These commercials were referenced on the ESPN program SportsCenter, when The King was facetiously dubbed an NFL Rookie Of The Year candidate (despite, as noted, the fact that he is shown playing for multiple teams). In August 2006, a commercial debuted showing The King holding a press conference with his "agent", Drew Rosenhaus.
