Whopper Virgins is more than a taste test...

Everyone in this business knows who Crispin, Porter and Bogusky is, and since they are media darlings in and of themselves, everyone loves to find out what they're going to do next. Their next segment into the Word of Whoppercraft, is their provocative Whopper Virgins spot. Ok, so it's not their spot, it's for Burger King, but in our world, it belongs to CPB.

The teaser-spots on television, lead you to believe it's simply a taste test between the Whopper and the Big Mac, decided by various third-world citizens, who have never had either. Upon visit to the site, www.whoppervirgins.com, you are greeted with a documentary by director Stacy Peralta, who coincidentally is one of the original Z-Boys, who revolutionized skateboarding in California in the late 60's and early 70's.

The documentary introduces these two burgers to citizens from the outskirts of Romania, Thailand and Greenland. Many critics are calling it exploitation, and others say it misses the demographic by miles. I can only disagree, because after watching it, it clearly is a fun, well-made documentary about the introduction of a completely new cuisine to a part of the world that has never even heard of a hamburger. In some cases, the crew had to show them how to eat it.

In any case, it is this blogger's humble opinion that this is a light-hearted, albeit technically travel-savvy look, at new cultures responding to an American staple. In one edit, one of the villagers actually gives a member of the crew a beautiful hand-made fur jacket as a token of his appreciation.

The other interesting part is that the docu-advert doesn't play favorites, many of the product testers enjoy the big mac over the whopper, and they don't try to hide this fact at all. One gentleman even makes no bones about it not being as good as seal meat. After viewing it, I will admit, I wasn't sure who this is supposed to appeal to, but the more I thought about it, I realized the answer is "everyone". It's about cultures sharing things with each other, and that's about as "risky" in the fast food business as you can get. It's almost Burger King's version of the Coca-Cola classic "I'd like to teach the world to sing".

Interesting campaign. JH