Blog Project 1

BURGER KING® is just one company who tackled the topic of bullying through advertising. During National Bullying Prevention Month, the non profit organization, No Bully, partnered with BURGER KING® to create a campaign named, “Bullying Junior.” They conducted an experiment that involved both actors and real customers. A high school junior was bullied by friends, which were actors, and then a WHOPPER JR.® sandwich was bullied by an employee. Before the sandwich was served it was punched, smashed, and destroyed. 95% of the real-life customers reported their bullied WHOPPER JR.®, but, only 12% reported the high school junior who was being bullied.  
At the beginning of this video there are teens saying the words, “scrawny, short, ugly, fat, weird,” This is an example of the plain folk approach as these simple words are used as the way to describe the bullying that takes place among youth. Another technique that is used is hidden fear. This ad talks about how many people don't stand up to bullies and how people should be standing up to it. This plays on the audience insecurity of not standing up for those being bullied. The association principle is used as BURGER KING® is associating their product/business to the positive cultural image of anti bullying.

The BURGER KING® campaign, “Bullying Junior”  is just one among many anti bullying ads. Due to the fact the topic of bullying has become more present in our media, I have seen many ads and campaigns related to anti bullying. Cartoon Network is another company that has spoken out about bullying. Their, is an award-winning, multi-platform pro-social initiative that addresses bullying among kids.

Before watching this ad, I expected it to be like every other bullying campaign out there. Although it is similar to other anti bullying ads, this one really stood out to me. There are many strengths about this ad that make it memorable. One is the way they provide a visual representation of bullying through the beaten whopper. I think people understand and feel that bullying is not okay but demonstrating the act of bullying on another object gives people another perception of bullying. Another strength is the use of real people. I think it allows the viewers to really connect because it is not all staged. the target audience is teens ranging in age from 13-18 and adults 18 and above. I believe that this ad connected with both of these audianes. It connected with teens due to the fact, the ad features kids talking about bullying and how it has affected them. This gives teens a chance to relate to the video as its people their age discussing it. It connects to adults because the ad features customers that are all above 18. Most of the customers did not stand up to the bully but did for the sandwich. This gives the viewers an opportunity to realize how they should stand up.

While researching this campaign, I found that people were responding very positively. One video I found, posted by FBE, was named “Elders react to Bullying”:Click here to watch.In this video elders are viewing the ad and most of them are shocked at how no one is standing up to the bullying. One of the viewers states that this ad is so relatable because at one point in time everyone has witnessed bullying.

AdAge responded to the video with an article named, BURGER KING BEATS UP ITS WHOPPER JR. TO MAKE AN IMPORTANT POINT: Click here to read. The article, written by Jessica Wohl, states “While Burger King is famous for pulling stunts in the name of selling burgers, its latest prank has a more noble cause”. She then discusses how the customer were not to pleased with their beaten whopper, but it ended up proving a good point.




Although this ad featured a whopper, I don't believe the goal of this campaign was to promote the whopper itself. I think BURGER KING® promoted their brand as a whole by showing they care about customers. They state that, “The BURGER KING® brand is known for putting the crown on everyone’s head and allowing people to have it their way.” Due to the fact they participated in this campaign I would recommend this business compared to other fast food places. Over all this video was very impactful and I enjoyed evaluating it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 2

Image
Topic One: Social Media  ABC News, The New York Times, and Donald Trump are three pages that I follow on Twitter. I normally use social media as a chance to connect with friends and family, but I chose to follow these pages for a few reasons. I chose to follow ABC News and The New York Times, due to the fact these organizations are my main sources of information when it comes to the news. I chose to follow Donald Trump simply because he is the president of the United States, and I figured it wouldn't hurt to see what he is posting. Scrolling through Twitter, or any social media outlet, can often feel like one negative story after the other, but this morning ABC News tweeted a story that brought a smile to my face. Listed below is the tweet.      This is the best tweet I have seen in a while and it made me want to retweet because of the positive story. Although there are serious issues taking place in our world, I think it is important to stop and take a moment to apprecia
Read more

Week 9 Topic 2- Campus Radio

Image
I have never been a huge fan of radio stations or listening to the radio, so I tried to think about starting a station from an unbiased perspective. I conducted some research to help me decide whether or not launching a radio station seemed feasible. My first concern was if the people at LBCC would be interested in listening to this radio station. I found that, according to News Generation , more than 71.6 million Millennials, people born between 1980 and 1996, use radio each month and 95% of them are reached monthly by radio. Due to the fact most college age students are millennials, I think that it would be possible to start a radio station, as the audience is clearly reached through radio.   My second concern was how they would go about starting it. The website, Intercollegiate Broadcasting System , offers some advice to starting a radio station. They state that a radio station is composed of two main parts: The studio, or source of programing, and the transmission mode. Transm
Read more

WikiLeaks

I am going to be honest here, I wasn't really aware of what WikiLeaks was before this assignment. After watching the TED talk and conducting more research, I started to think about how useful WikiLeaks is. WikiLeaks is useful for two reasons: it allows people to post anonymously and it allows people to access significant information. I found this organization to be very interesting as I am not usually one to enjoy watching the news  (I may have stated this in previous blogs). The leaks that this site provides allows people to learn more about topics that they may have never had a chance to do elsewhere. I support WikiLeaks as it provides society with information that we should have access to. I am fine with the current freedom of expression/creativity that we see in our society. I believe that the media platforms that we have allows many people to have a voice and express their freedom of speech.
Read more