I see today’s “Weird Earl” is subservientchicken. Whether you call it viral marketing or flock management, this is an advertisment for Burger King (and they’re pretty upfront about it). All the faux-distressed velour chairs and cheep(!)-looking chook suiting is sad geek banter fodder.
Maybe some of those who submitted the site didn’t know, but the tag for Weird Earl’s shows an understanding of this. The tag is a Burger King slogan.
Is Weird Earl’s now something that knowingly links to a marketing campaign? Harumph.
I can tell already that these viral marketing campaigns are going to make me insane.
You can’t do anything on the damn interweb without coming across somebody jibbering with glee over the damn subservient chicken.
It shouldn’t piss me off, I know. Instead of popping up obnoxious ads or interrupting fine quality programming or killing trees and littering our communities with flyers, Burger King has created an entertainment product that people find amusing.
And those people are telling their friends about it.
And people seem to like it.
But, damn it, it drives me insane that they have co-opted people into doing their advertising for them. They don’t have to send me spam or create pop-ups that say “Come see the subservient chicken” because they managed to get private citizens to scream their head off about it on any internet forum they can find, and they have my own damn family spamming me instead! Dammit, people, Burger King has made you its bitch!
I dunno, like I said, I don’t know why it bugs me so much, but it does. It’s like people paying lots of money to get a T-shirt that is just an advertisement for the T-shirt’s manufacturer. Just ain’t right.
I never paid much attention to Weird Earl’s, so I am unable to muster much outrage over the decline of said institution, but the hysteria over this ad campaign is making me a little batty.
I fail to see the point of the “subservient chicken” website (though I understand that it’s an ad). You’re supposed to tell this poor, sad person in a chicken suit what to do, and then be – what, amused? Amazed?-- when they do it. I find it creepy.
At Burger King, you can have your sandwiches “your way”. You want extra pickles? You want no ketchup? That’s all fine. You’re the boss. In the ad, you’re the boss.
We like the chicken!
But not as much as a spoon…
I think it’s automated. I asked him to mashed potato, I asked him to do the twist. Couldn’t do either. Asked him to get down, he kneeled.
He can do the funky chicken.
It is automated. See Snopes’ page about it here.
I personally think it’s cool. It’s advertising that barely refers back to the source, provides free entertainment and doesn’t irritate me.