OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill. -- Burger King is striving to convey brand boldness by bringing back its once-dethroned mascot, the King, according to a report by Restaurant Business.
After being retired in 2011, the quick-service restaurant (QSR) chain's mascot returned this month in a commercial to promote the chain’s $1.49 Chicken Nuggets, his first ad appearance in more than four years.
"The King has been breaking status quo for decades and has earned his space in pop culture,” Burger King CMO Eric Hirschhorn told Adweek's Adfreak. “He conveys the confident and bold spirit of the Burger King brand, which you can see comes to life in everything we do."
The King’s comeback closely follows KFC’s revival of its longstanding brand mascot, Colonel Sanders, and McDonald’s rebranding of its classic Hamburglar character.
Some on Twitter called the new Hamburglar ads awkward, weird and even--like BK's King character--"creepy." A debate raged after the videos became available online over whether the new Hamburglar was attractive. For McDonald’s, though, the conversation was the point.
“We knew the Hamburglar would obviously create some buzz,” Joel Yashinsky, vice president for U.S. marketing at Oak Brook, Ill.-based McDonald’s, told The New York Times. “When we saw it trending on Twitter, we knew we had connected in a way that helped the relevance of the brand.”
Click here to view the full Restaurant Business report.
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