Coming out with one of the most controversial ads of this year’s Super Bowl, Burger King aired an Ad in the beloved advertising event for first time since 2006.

The ad featured the famous pop-artist Andy Warhol eating a Whopper with their logo and the hashtag #eatlikeandy. 

The ad was a 45-Second uninterrupted clip with no music or voiceovers of the documentary ‘66 scenes of America’, directed by Jørgen Leth. One of the circumstances of the negotiation between Burger King and Leth was that the video could not be changed or touched in any way. 

Warhol was one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, so a video of him eating a burger like everyone else was a rare humanizing moment of this extravagant, larger-than-life artist. The ad was meant to be allusion to the Warhol quote “What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too.” 

This ad was promoted by a cryptic video of the burger king painting a picture in a similar background as the picture above and the date 2.3.19 in the end. Many critics lashed out over the use of Warhol’s image being used to sell fast-food while others praised Burger Kings marketing campaign on keeping the integrity of the original video while honoring a legend. Fernando Machado, Burger King’s global chief marketing officer said in an interview with AdAge “We believe that it’s kind of cool that he did a lot of art that looked like advertising and that we are using his art to advertise,” says Machado. “It’s like a silent assassin in the clutter of the Super Bowl.

For more information, check out Jessica Wohl’s Article “Why Burger King Showed Andy Warhol Eating a Burger in its Super Bowl Commercial” on AdAge

Link: https://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/burger-king-andy-warhol-super-bowl-ad/316498/