It's Good To Be The King.

Have to give a shout-out to my fellow marketing-minded blogger (and coincidentally he is also a *Superdad* as well, just like me!) Rich Gould here, as I originally viewed this awesome video on the Razor Creative blog.




(UPDATE: I keep revising this with new pointers but if you still cannot see the embedded video above just do a Web search for "SpongeBob Burger King" and watch it on YouTube instead...trust me, it is well worth the additional effort to find it)

Rich expressed some concerns in his blog posting about this spot, basically the fact that it was targeted “for kids” and therefore being somewhat inappropriate if viewed by the younger set. My view was exactly the opposite, as I personally think it is an absolute *genius* ad.

Here’s why I think so. As the parent of 3- and 5-year-old children who fall solidly within the SpongeBob consumer demo I consider anything SB-related to be "fun for the whole family" here at my house.

Yet I believe this commercial is talking to me, not to my little ones. Because Daddy is usually the individual (after consulting with Mommy, of course!) who decides where to go for any fast food dining and in the end is ultimately the one springing for a couple of Kiddie Meals, complete with the obligatory branded toy item.

And with me being of a certain age - ie. able to remember this bad boy from its original release; seems Sionne is getting OLDER every day, by the way - hearing the distinctive opening line and musical riff had an instant head-nodding effect that captured me right away...and well, must admit that the King’s antics, the song lyrics and simply ridiculous booty-shaking dancers with their square (!) butts kept me coming back for more. Must have replayed the video about 6 times or so that night before moving on. And ended up checking it out again several times in the week or so since the originally viewing.

So I fully agree some of the content is at best not likely to connect with those aged 3-9 years old…and at worst potentially very inappropriate if in fact BK is targeting children. Rich made the valid and undisputed point that the unsolicited measuring of some buttocks by the King could be construed as something unseemly. But in my mind BK was talking to me here, not to my offspring and I think this allows me to appreciate the commercial in the way it was intended to be received.

Bottom line? With their choice of approach in promoting the current SpongeBob meal/toy offer, this brand captured my attention and also totally made me laugh out loud, gaining some valuable *street cred* in the process .

Depends on your preferred scoring system but the evidence generally supports this being a pretty solid ad win overall, at least based on my Focus Group Of One response and being within the adult/parental consumer demo. Besides, execution-wise, it’s kinda to argue with the effectiveness here of a cameo appearance by Sir Mix-A-Lot himself…isn't it?

Round 2
OK, so was catching up on my email tonight and noticed that (my admittedly personal and subjective) opinion has been validated, by at least one metric anyway. Turns out the Burger King “Square-Butt” spot made its Online Viral Video Chart debut in third place, according to Ad Age:

BK's Square-Butt Spot Makes Viral-Chart Debut in Third Place
Published: April 16, 2009
NEW YORK (Ad Age.com) -- The King likes square butts -- and web-video viewers sure like his crooning about them. The Crispin-produced video promoting Burger King's SpongeBob SquarePants kids meals, which is also airing on TV, entered this week's viral-video chart in the No. 3 spot with more than a half million views, according to data from video-measurement firm Visible Measures.

Yet again, the guys at Crispin Porter + Bogusky hit a home run for their client, while further reinforcing their long-standing image within the industry as Creative & Marketing Rock Stars…and maintaining this status in my personal ranking as well, since I have been loving almost everything they produce from the first time I became aware of this agency’s work back in 2005.

Dear CP+B: Keep pushing the envelope, making it memorable and above all continuing to bring your A-game material, because I just love this stuff…

Laters.