The king gets trolled: Nando's SG and MY take on BK's global mouldy burger

You may have seen a mouldy burger ad by Burger King all over the Internet last week winning praise from the ad and marketing industry. In an attempt to promote its fresh ingredients, the king of flame grilling created a time lapse video where it constructs its iconic Whopper and shoots its condition over a 34 day period. The spot reads, "the beauty of no artificial preservatives" at the end.

In response to the global hype, and keeping true to its naughty nature, Nando's Malaysia took on the global team creating the raved-about ad for Burger King with its own ad on social.

While Burger King promoted its no preservatives move, Nando's reiterated that it has always stuck to 0% preservatives. Next to Burger King's mouldy Whopper, it simply placed an empty one with presumably chicken crumbs with the lines, "Some burgers, after 34 days" and  "Our peri-peri chicken burger after 3-4 mins". The post was conceptualised by Nando's Malaysia's social media agency Fishermen Integrated. Nando's Singapore later reposted it on its Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/NandosMY/posts/10156605733916326

Nando's is not one to shy away from trend jacking. In Malaysia, it has taken jabs at brands such as McDonald's and Domino’s and Pizza Hut. In recent times, it has gone far enough to ride on the hype around an audio recording released with Rosmah Mansor, the wife of former Malaysian PM Najib Razak, saying “Can I advise you something?" to her husband. To this, Nando’s Facebook post said since everyone’s advising each other, it also wants to advise consumers. This was accompanied by an image which said: “Can I advise you something? Double your Chillies at Nando’s from 9-19 Jan”.

Coincidentally, Burger King as well is no stranger to trolling.  Globally, “The King” has outwitted it competitors numerous times to not only grab the attention of local media, but international ones too flaming competitors KFC and McDonald's. An iconic move was when Burger King Sweden mocked McDonald’s after it lost the “Big Mac” trademark it filed for in the European Trademark Court. Burger King then surprised consumers with a new menu called “Not Big Macs”, containing product names that were inspired by feedback regarding McDonald’s Big Mac.

For its current campaign, Burger King worked in collaboration with Swedish agency INGO, David Miami and Publicis.  In the ad, instead of featuring its product with the classic, flawless, and often perfect photographic style commonly used to showcase fast food products, the Burger King  brand let its most iconic product rot to make a powerful statement: The brand has achieved a milestone by removing artificial preservatives from the Whopper sandwich, in most European countries and select markets in the United States.

Additionally, the brand has removed colors and flavors from artificial sources from all core menu sandwiches and sides in those European countries and across the United States. “At Burger King restaurants, we believe that real food tastes better. That’s why we are working hard to remove preservatives, colors and flavors from artificial sources from the food we serve in all countries around the world,” said Fernando Machado, restaurant brands international global chief marketing officer of Burger King.

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