Winds Howling

Six months late, Burger King’s latest marketing push finally broke through to me yesterday. I scrolled past something on my phone that told me they updated the Whopper. A few more minutes of reading revealed this happened all the way back in February and was just one part of a campaign to manufacture good vibes through stuff like self-effacing YouTube videos, begging the public for criticism and, apparently, refreshing the Whopper.

Looking at my records, it appeared that I was myself one of Burger King’s lost customers. The last transaction I had any evidence of was from May of last year, when I bought “Hamburger,” according to the emailed receipt. I decided to check out the new Whopper.

The main changes, according to Burger King, are:

• “a more premium, better tasting bun.”
• “better tasting mayo.”
• instead of a paper wrapper, it’s “served in a box to ensure it makes it to Guests exactly the way it left the kitchen.”

The press release heavily implied these changes were based on feedback solicited from the general public during their “text the president” campaign, but I don’t see how that’s possible, given that they only collected feedback for nine days before launching the new Whopper.

When I tried placing my order on the app, it glitched and said there was an error processing it, but I still got a receipt email. I relaunched the app and found that I had a Whopper meal in my cart but could also track the status of one I’d just ordered. I sighed and got on my way.

They’d gotten my order after all, but it was out of reach behind the counter. Fortunately, an employee happened to be troubleshooting the slushie machine at the time, and was too close to pretend I wasn’t there. They fetched my bag and I sat down with my food 10 minutes after ordering it. I mention the time because the Whopper wasn’t quite all the way warm — I’ll assume they were just insanely quick in making it.

I started eating the Whopper at 8:24 and finished at 8:29, with Darius Rucker’s “Wagon Wheel” playing from Burger King’s speakers basically the whole time.

I appreciated that half the Whopper was wrapped pretty tightly in paper, making it easy to keep your hands clean while you eat it.

I can’t honestly say I noticed much of a difference from what I remember of the last Whoppers I had, whenever those were. It tasted good, but ordinary, and I wished it had been warmer.

When I finished my Whopper and finally looked up, I noticed tons of paper crowns all over the place, free to take. It turns out these are from another marketing campaign that launched a couple of weeks after the updated Whopper, called “There’s A New King And It’s You.” Following the same vein as the feedback collection drive, it’s all about making the customer feel like they’re the center of Burger King’s universe.

The campaign officially fires the brand’s King mascot, who has been absent from its marketing communications in recent years, and places the crown on its Guests, whose feedback continues to guide the brand’s decisions.

It must be fun to stack these crowns up again into neat little pyramids when people knock them over.