Thread: Whopper Virgins

Some of you have probably seen this advertised on tv, and people are making a big fuss over the "ethics" of this advertising campaign. The whole schpeel is researchers go to remote parts of the world where the natives have never seen/eaten/heard of a hamburger; and are given a choice between a big mac and whopper.

The only thing that can be concluded is that Burger King's ad depot. is light years ahead of McDonald's (which consist of black people and i'm lovin it).

Burger King is trying to take over the world by making everyone obese with their delicious burgers

Every girl who hasn't had sex with my is a whopper virgin, huhu

What they don't show is the whopper virgins crying, regretting what they've done with the wrong burger at the wrong time, and then vomiting because they couldn't handle the guilt/disgusting burger.

TOGS they don't show the pain or confusion of those who had a whopper forced on them as a child, either. These people need our help.

Originally Posted by no_brains_no_worries

I think this is the most fucked up thing ever. We haul in some of the poorest people in the world, gawk at them for the advertisement of a corporate giant and then send them back into the god forsaken backwater village they came from? I mean WTF?! Maybe if BK helped them by getting the clean water or something instead of just givin' them a free burger.

LOL, they're not ethiopans or something, just romanians.

I met a bunch of romanians last summer.

nice people, but far from starving villagers.

Why would anyone expect Burger King to turn into a humanitarian organization? I think the experiment is interesting. Most of those primitive tribes are that way because they want to be (if what I've learned from National Geographic specials has taught me anything). There is no ethical problem here that I see.

Here's what I don't get... why is someone who's never had a burger before somehow better at judging a burger than me?

I know my goddamned burgers.

The few remaining uncommercialised areas of the world and they just have to shove burgers in their face.

Originally Posted by pinkeyedjim

Here's what I don't get... why is someone who's never had a burger before somehow better at judging a burger than me?

I know my goddamned burgers.

Why not have a taste test with a bunch of gourmet raters- see who can not vomit the longest

They both taste like shit.

My issue with this campaign has nothing to do with ethics.

My issue is that the assumption that the tastes of some backwater villagers 3000 miles away who have never eaten the food before and are utterly unacquainted to my dietary preferences or needs are supposedly capable of indicating which would be preferable to me.

More than anything I hate companies who refuse to adapt their marketing to recognize that mass advertising through screens is dead in today's society and the only way to retain attention is through experience.

(I am one of the economists who opposes advertising though so)

Granted, both McD's and BK are shitty burgers (okay, I get them in a rush), but how do we know these "whopper virgins" are really what they say? I highly doubt they are really natives who have never had a burger, or for that matter, cooked meat. Look at me, I'm already over-analyzing a stupid commercial... TV sucks.

In before burger pussy.

Advertising is vital for monopolistic competition to keep going, and since the vast majority of things in America are sold this way we probably want to let it keep going.

well here is another thread derailed.

First, economically speaking, any argument for advertising tends to be reinforcing the status quo and the impracticality of eliminating it from the market. I understand this, and I understand it will never go away. It's a prisoner's dilemma, so firms have no choice but to advertise because it is possible.

Second, realize that there are some benefits to advertising that are both more cost-effective and non-unique to mass advertising. Advertising is an effective means of differentiating products and establishing a brand; you know that a bottle with a red label and the white Coca-Cola script is going to taste like coke. Second, advertising is an effective way of conveying facts of the products (again, look on the bottle and know the nutrition facts.) These are important to consumers, but both of these examples were realized without mass advertising. I'm not advocating that every product needs to be devoid of labeling or aesthetic appeal.

Third, advertising is, by its very nature, either unnecessary for consumers or misleading. Take a hypothetical situation in which there are two vacuum cleaners, A and B. Brand A is top-quality, a great value, and works perfectly. To improve sales, they pour millions of dollars into advertising for their product. Brand B is low-quality, a poor value, and does not work as advertised. To improve sales, they pour millions of dollars into advertising for their product.

A month later, both products are reporting great sales figures; the advertising is working. Two months later, product A is still going strong and B is leveling off. By the end of three months, product A is established in the marketplace and product B is putting even more money into advertising to help their sales numbers. By the six month period, product A has cut its advertising budget in half and its sales are strong. Product B has disappeared.

This is exactly as the free market would have the situation play out. The inferior product is gone from the marketplace. However, what about all those consumers who received advertising for B and purchased B, only to wind up with an inferior product? What about all the money that Firm B made on the sales of their inferior product, driven not by the product itself but by good advertising? I would say it's unethical, but I understand why they do it. The free market is still successful, but not because of advertising, rather in spite of advertising.

Advertising also has a couple of other effects on a product: as my example illustrates, it doesn't really improve sales or profitability for any product in the long-run (in order to continue driving sales numbers, remember, product B had to increase its advertising.) Advertising is, by nature, associated with quality. The logic of the consumer is "if the product wasn't good, the company wouldn't waste the money to advertise." The act of advertising at all is a sign of quality to the consumer (compare: would you be more likely to purchase a product that you first heard about from an advertisement during the Super Bowl for $20 million a minute or a competing product that you heard about through advertising on a shitty forum with 300 active posters for half a penny per click?)

I get that advertising isn't going away. I get that it's a major industry in this country, and the major driver behind all of our entertainment. I understand that in a global market, even if we banned advertising in our country, it would continue in others. I understand why firms advertise (like I said, it's a prisoner's dilemma.) But if you could reset everything and establish a standard so that mass-advertising was never an option, the money spent on advertising would be instead spent on improving the quality of the products, not the quality of the sales pitch.

Originally Posted by Atmosfear

well here is another thread derailed.

First, economically speaking, any argument for advertising tends to be reinforcing the status quo and the impracticality of eliminating it from the market. I understand this, and I understand it will never go away. It's a prisoner's dilemma, so firms have no choice but to advertise because it is possible.

Second, realize that there are some benefits to advertising that are both more cost-effective and non-unique to mass advertising. Advertising is an effective means of differentiating products and establishing a brand; you know that a bottle with a red label and the white Coca-Cola script is going to taste like coke. Second, advertising is an effective way of conveying facts of the products (again, look on the bottle and know the nutrition facts.) These are important to consumers, but both of these examples were realized without mass advertising. I'm not advocating that every product needs to be devoid of labeling or aesthetic appeal.

Third, advertising is, by its very nature, either unnecessary for consumers or misleading. Take a hypothetical situation in which there are two vacuum cleaners, A and B. Brand A is top-quality, a great value, and works perfectly. To improve sales, they pour millions of dollars into advertising for their product. Brand B is low-quality, a poor value, and does not work as advertised. To improve sales, they pour millions of dollars into advertising for their product.

A month later, both products are reporting great sales figures; the advertising is working. Two months later, product A is still going strong and B is leveling off. By the end of three months, product A is established in the marketplace and product B is putting even more money into advertising to help their sales numbers. By the six month period, product A has cut its advertising budget in half and its sales are strong. Product B has disappeared.

This is exactly as the free market would have the situation play out. The inferior product is gone from the marketplace. However, what about all those consumers who received advertising for B and purchased B, only to wind up with an inferior product? What about all the money that Firm B made on the sales of their inferior product, driven not by the product itself but by good advertising? I would say it's unethical, but I understand why they do it. The free market is still successful, but not because of advertising, rather in spite of advertising.

Advertising also has a couple of other effects on a product: as my example illustrates, it doesn't really improve sales or profitability for any product in the long-run (in order to continue driving sales numbers, remember, product B had to increase its advertising.) Advertising is, by nature, associated with quality. The logic of the consumer is "if the product wasn't good, the company wouldn't waste the money to advertise." The act of advertising at all is a sign of quality to the consumer (compare: would you be more likely to purchase a product that you first heard about from an advertisement during the Super Bowl for $20 million a minute or a competing product that you heard about through advertising on a shitty forum with 300 active posters for half a penny per click?)

I get that advertising isn't going away. I get that it's a major industry in this country, and the major driver behind all of our entertainment. I understand that in a global market, even if we banned advertising in our country, it would continue in others. I understand why firms advertise (like I said, it's a prisoner's dilemma.) But if you could reset everything and establish a standard so that mass-advertising was never an option, the money spent on advertising would be instead spent on improving the quality of the products, not the quality of the sales pitch.

You should write childrens books.

Originally Posted by Atmosfear

I get that advertising isn't going away. I get that it's a major industry in this country, and the major driver behind all of our entertainment. I understand that in a global market, even if we banned advertising in our country, it would continue in others. I understand why firms advertise (like I said, it's a prisoner's dilemma.) But if you could reset everything and establish a standard so that mass-advertising was never an option, the money spent on advertising would be instead spent on improving the quality of the products, not the quality of the sales pitch.

Pretty much everything you're saying makes sense. I just don't understand the making mass-advertising never be an option thing. It seems similar to saying that if there was just no way to get across a vast ocean, then we wouldn't have gone to war in the past (and currently). For most wars I can't argue with that, but I don't see what is accomplished or what new idea gets across by saying that.

Are you basically saying that advertising does more bad than good as your point? If that's the case, then please explain more. I'm quite skeptical, but I haven't put a lot of thought specifically into advertising, so I would like to know more.

Also as a corollary to my long-run argument, I would also like to recognize that there are certain industries that benefit greatly from advertising because of negative externalities associated with government regulation. The prime example of this is pharmaceuticals, which, by the time their products are approved for the market, often have only 3-6 years to recover billions of dollars of development costs. Advertising costs at that point are not only a small fraction of the costs associated with the product, but may actually lower the overall cost of the product because they can increase the quantity of the product sold to hit the break-even point (if you need to make 50 bucks to break even, you can sell 2 pills for $25 each or you can sell 50 pills for $1 each.)

Also, I may not have directly highlighted the fact that at the end of the day, it is the consumer who pays for advertising as a result of increased costs associated with the product. If firms weren't paying $20 million for a minute of Super Bowl time, the cost of the product would be $20 million lower, which means the same profit could be achieved at a total price $20 million lower.

Yeah, I'm not reading all that, lol.

Back on topic, so I wonder how many of these people actually chose the Big Mac and didn't have their video shown by Burger King.

Originally Posted by Mr. E

Yeah, I'm not reading all that, lol.

Back on topic, so I wonder how many of these people actually chose the Big Mac and didn't have their video shown by Burger King.

5

Atmosfear does make a really valid point; it's pretty sad that people feel it is more important to openly say 'tl;dr' than simply post whatever is applicable to the thread.

Talking about advertising and it's effects is still central to this thread, considering we are discussing the questionable success of BK vs McD's advertising campaigns.

advertising single-handedly ruined stephane dion's reputation in an entire nation

well stephane dion had a hand in that, because he never showed that he was a leader

i mean he still has the two front runners circling him like vultures and hasn't shown control over his party

and harper is using this as a front to push anti-coalition statements.

also, touché

the way dion beat the others in the leadership race set them up to resist control, and these include people who weren't in the party or even in the country for ever, which are more divisive qualities than a simple french accent

but i mean once you are the leader of a party why would you need to prove yourself to have leadership traits; it's not all about rallying for support, but articulating policies that others may not agree with

harper looks like a leader because no one would stand beside him

Originally Posted by mutton

the way dion beat the others in the leadership race set them up to resist control, and these include people who weren't in the party or even in the country for ever, which are more divisive qualities than a simple french accent

but i mean once you are the leader of a party why would you need to prove yourself to have leadership traits; it's not all about rallying for support, but articulating policies that others may not agree with

harper looks like a leader because no one would stand beside him

Once you take control of a political party, you have to have an appearance of being in control. Jean Chretien, for example, had a huge amount of control over his party and was a devious politician - that's why he held a majority government for 13 years, until things finally slipped out of his control (too greedy). No one would accuse Chretien of being a weak leader, because he was a vicious politician and everyone knew it.

In this case, Dion was handed the leadership because he was the lesser of two evils for both sides, and his inability to project control over his party was, yes, influenced by the two frontrunners not really wanting to be subordinate. Harper seized control of the Conservative party when they merged, and kept it - probably because he is as ruthless as Chretien was back in his heyday. I haven't seen him show any limits when dealing with the public or taking whatever stance absolved his party of responsiblity.

Harper would look like a real leader if he got a majority government willing to stand behind him. The problem with his heavy-handed manner is that, as a minority government, he requires the help of the other parties to pass any laws. Instead of trying to work with the other parties, and dealing with them diplomatically, he continually alienates himself and his party by forcing motions down all their throats that will cause them harm, backing it up by saying 'If you don't like it, we'll have another election.' He doesn't have the confidence of the House, or of the Canadian people - that doesn't look like a leader to me.

Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage

I actually learned something from this thread thanks to Atmosfear's post. The rest of you fine posters are babbling pinheads.

I was raped by a bic mac so this thread has been very traumatic for me.

Did I say big mac? I meant Bernie Mac.