FOUR OUT OF FIVE DENTISTS CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
When pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. bought its competitor Warner-Lambert Company in 2000, it also acquired its Adams confectionary division and its gum brands Trident, Dentyne, and Chiclets. At the time, sugarless chewing-gum brands were taking the lead in retail gum sales as health-conscious consumers chose alternatives to sugary treats. In 2003 total sales of sugarless gum sales were $578.5 million, while sugared gum achieved $309.3 million in total sales. The top market position that year was held by Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company’s brand Extra, with a 26 percent dollar share. Wrigley’s Eclipse, with a 16 percent dollar share, held the number two spot. Number three was Pfizer’s Trident, with sales of $82.6 million and a 14.8 percent dollar share. To help Pfizer drive sales of Trident, ad agency J. Walter Thompson created a new marketing campaign for the brand that was based on Trident’s 30-year-old claim that it was recommended by four out of five dentists to their patients who chewed gum. The campaign, which was limited to television, put a humorous spin on the answer to the question of why the fifth dentist did not recommend Trident. ‘‘Four Out of Five Dentists’’ spots began airing in January 2003. A month later Pfizer sold its Adams division, including the Trident brand, to London-based company Cadbury Schweppes. Cadbury Schweppes created an American subsidiary called Cadbury Adams and continued the ‘‘Four Out of Five Dentists’’ campaign through early 2005. Specific spending figures for the campaign were unavailable, but a report in Adweek noted that Cadbury spent approximately $5 to $10 million advertising the Trident brand in 2003.
The Trident television spot ‘‘Squirrel’’ earned accolades from the industry, including a mention on Adweek’s Best Spots list. Not all comments about the Trident commercials were positive, however. An article in Advertising Age questioned whether consumers under 35 years old—the brand’s target audience—would get the reference to the old slogan. Some consumers also complained that the ‘‘Ride’’ spot, which showed the fifth dentist falling off a roller coaster, was in bad taste.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
In 1899 a collaboration between Thomas Adams, Edward Beeman, and William White resulted in the founding of the American Chicle Group and the creation of chewing-gum brands such as Chiclets. In 1916 the company introduced the first gum touted as having oralhygiene benefits: Dentyne. Following concerns expressed by consumers about the effects of sugar on their dental health, the company introduced Trident, a sugarless gum, in 1964. Warner-Lambert Company, a pharmaceutical manufacturer, acquired the American Chicle Group in 1962; three decades later Warner-Lambert changed the name of its U.S. confectionary division from American Chicle Group to Adams.
In 2000, following a three-month takeover battle, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer bought the Warner-Lambert Company for $90 billion. Referring to the Adams segment as a ‘‘noncore’’ business, Pfizer sold it to Cadbury Schweppes in February 2003 for $4.2 billion. Just weeks prior to the sale, Pfizer launched Trident gum’s ‘‘Four Out of Five Dentists’’ campaign. After the acquisition Cadbury Adams USA LLC was created as a U.S. subsidiary of London-based Cadbury Schweppes. Among the new subsidiary’s products were the gum brands Chiclets, Dentyne, and Trident, the mint brands Clorets and Certs, and Halls cough drops. Cadbury Adams also handled the historical gum brands that carried the names of American Chicle Group’s founders Thomas Adams and Edward Beeman: Adams Blackjack and Beeman’s. Despite the change in company ownership, the ‘‘Four Out of Five Dentists’’ campaign for Trident gum was continued by Cadbury Adams through March 2005.

TARGET MARKET
Trident gum’s ‘‘Four Out of Five Dentists’’ campaign targeted consumers in the 18- to 34-year-old demographic.
According to the company, this group linked Trident gum with dental-health benefits (because it was sugarless it did not cause cavities) but often did not associate it with other health issues. The purpose of the new campaign was to stress the relevance of Trident sugarless gum in consumers’ lives, not only as a means of preventing cavities but also to help with other health concerns. Based on information released by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 44 million Americans were considered obese in 2001, and 16.7 million were diagnosed with diabetes that year. Further, in 2003 the National Center for Health Statistics reported that the rate of obesity in kids aged 6 to 11 years old had quadrupled in the past 25 years. Research indicated that increased consumption of sugar by Americans of all ages was a contributing factor to the rising rate of obesity and related health complications such as diabetes.

COMPETITION
Since the introduction of its Juicy Fruit chewing gum in 1893, the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company had held the top spot in sales of gum in the United States. But the company had been slow to jump into the sugarless-gum market. That changed in 1984, when Wrigley introduced its first sugarless brand, Extra, which by 1989 had become the country’s best-selling sugar-free gum. It added Eclipse sugarless gum to its U.S. product line in 1999. Playing on the success of Extra and the growing popularity of sugarless gum, in 2001 Wrigley introduced another such product, Orbit, to American consumers. In 2003 the Extra brand held the number one spot with U.S. sales of $141 million. That year Eclipse was the number two sugarless gum, and Orbit followed in the number five spot with sales of $60.9 million. To help boost Orbit’s sales and push it closer to the number three brand, Cadbury Adams’ Trident, Wrigley launched an advertising campaign that poked fun at its competitor. The campaign, which began in February 2003, compared Orbit to ‘‘Brand T’’ gum, a product that resembled competitor Trident. Orbit advertisements also made fun of Trident’s ‘‘Four out of five dentists recommend’’ claim. The Orbit ads featured an attractive spokeswoman with a British accent who showed what happened when a construction worker switched from ‘‘Brand T’’ to Orbit. After giving the man a kiss, the spokeswoman said, ‘‘Orbit cleans another dirty mouth. That’s why four out of five construction workers prefer the good clean feeling of Orbit, no matter what.’’
Although the Hershey Company was best known for chocolate confections, such as its famous Hershey’s Kisses, in 2000 the iconic chocolatier joined the gum market with the acquisition of Nabisco Holdings Corp.’s gum and mint business. The $135 million deal included Nabisco’s Ice Breaker sugarless gum. In 2002 it appeared that Hershey itself would be sold, with potential buyers that included competitors Cadbury Schweppes and Wrigley. In late 2002 Hershey rejected a $12 billion bid made by Wrigley, and changes to the controlling Hershey Trust Board membership resulted in the company no longer being for sale. To enhance its gum brand and reach a wider segment of consumers, in 2002 Hershey expanded its Ice Breaker brand to include Unleashed, which targeted Generation Y youths, or kids 16 to 24 years old. Ice Breaker added a breath-freshening flavor, Spearmint, in 2003. The brand was ranked number six in 2003, behind Wrigley’s Orbit.

ORIGINATOR OF TRIDENT’S ‘‘FOUR OUT OF FIVE DENTIST’’ CLAIM DIES
Longtime advertising executive Henry Kornhauser died on September 14, 2005. He was 73 years old. While working as an account executive for the Trident sugarless gum brand in the mid-1960s, Kornhauser provided the information that led to Trident’s marketing claim that ‘‘Four Out of Five Dentists’’ recommended the product to their patients who chewed gum. Kornhauser began his career in the mail room of New York–based Katz Agency and eventually became an executive at ad agencies that included the well-known Cunningham & Walsh. During the 1970s he served as president of Dusenberry Ruriani & Kornhauser and then of Clyne Dusenberry and Kornhauser & Calene. Another famous slogan he helped create was Black Flag Roach Motel’s ‘‘Roaches check in, but they don’t check out.’’

MARKETING STRATEGY
In 2003 Adams, owned at the time by pharmaceutical company Pfizer, decided to break into the club of Super Bowl advertisers with a commercial for its Trident brand chewing gum. The company’s ad agency, J. Walter Thompson, created a television spot that would stand out among the Super Bowl commercials that promoted everything from beer and soft drinks to tax preparers and athletic shoes. J. Walter Thompson created a spot that played on Trident’s long-running tagline, ‘‘Four out of five dentists recommend.’’ It used humor to answer the question that was raised by the tagline: Why did dentist number five not recommend the gum to his or her patients? The campaign was limited to television and included three spots.
The first of the three spots, which made its debut during Super Bowl XXXVII, was titled ‘‘Squirrel.’’ It depicted a panel of five dentists sitting at a table, while a voice-over asked, ‘‘Four out of five dentists surveyed recommend Trident for patients who chew gum. But what about the fifth dentist?’’ The camera focused on the first four dentists as each one responded, ‘‘Yes.’’ As the fifth dentist prepared to answer the question, a squirrel that had made its way into the room through an open window ran up the hapless dentist’s pant leg. There was a loud crunching noise as the squirrel chomped onto one of the dentist’s body parts, which was followed by the man screaming in pain, ‘‘No.’’ The voice-over concluded:
‘‘One thing’s for sure. Long-lasting Trident is good for teeth.’’
A second television spot was released in mid-January as a follow-up to the Super Bowl spot. Titled ‘‘Fly,’’ it showed the panel of dentists again sitting at a table, but in front of each was a box with two buttons, one green and labeled ‘‘Yes,’’ and one red and labeled ‘‘No.’’ The voice-over asked the same question about the fifth dentist as in the ‘‘Squirrel’’ spot, but rather than verbally responding ‘‘Yes’’ to the question, each of the first four dentists pressed the green button, and the word ‘‘Yes’’ lit up. As the fifth dentist prepared to respond by pressing one of the buttons, a fly buzzed into the room and landed on his forehead. The dentist sitting beside him smacked the fly with a clipboard, knocking dentist number five unconscious; he fell forward, landing on the red button and lighting up the word ‘‘No.’’ The voice-over again concluded with the statement ‘‘There are many theories, but one thing’s for sure. Long-lasting Trident is good for teeth.’’
The final spot, ‘‘Ride,’’ was created to support the launch of Trident’s Cool Rush flavor variety, which was introduced in 2003. In this commercial the five dentists were shown riding a roller coaster at an amusement park. Following the same format used in the ‘‘Squirrel’’ and ‘‘Fly’’ commercials, before the unfortunate fifth dentist could respond to the question, the safety bar on his roller coaster car failed to swing all the way around, and he toppled out of the seat when the ride inverted.

OUTCOME
The humor of the spots, particularly ‘‘Squirrel,’’ appealed to both consumers and the advertising industry. The spot earned recognition as one of Adweek magazine’s 50 Best Spots of 2003. Finally providing an answer to the long-running question of why the fifth dentist did not recommend Trident to patients who chewed gum added to the interest. In his ratings of the Super Bowl commercials, ESPN.com columnist Eric Neel gave the ‘‘Squirrel’’ spot an Honorable Mention. On the other hand, whileAdvertising Age columnist Bob Garfield described the spot as ‘‘cute,’’ he also voiced doubts about the effectiveness of the campaign’s central joke: ‘‘Will anyone under 35 remember the old ‘four-out-of-five dentists’ claim?’’ Some consumers criticized the ‘‘Ride’’ spot, stating that it was in bad taste given the number of real amusementpark accidents related to roller coasters. The campaign’s television spots ran through March 2005. In May of that year Trident launched a new campaign, ‘‘Little Mouth,’’ which featured a set of animated false teeth caught in dangerous situations, such as falling into a cup of coffee and nearly drowning. In each spot the teeth were rescued by a pack of Trident sugarless gum, and the new tagline stated, ‘‘A mouth’s best friend.’’

MOVE OUR MONEY CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
In 1997 Ben Cohen, cofounder of the superpremium ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc., was shocked to learn that Congress had decreased spending on social programs but had increased the Pentagon’s defense budget. The following year Cohen founded Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities (BLSP), a nonprofit organization dedicated to transferring 15 percent of the $281 billion defense budget into educational funding. By 1999 he had mobilized more than 500 BLSP members, which included corporate executives, retired generals and admirals, and celebrities. Hoping to make education funding the key issue of the 2000 presidential elections and compel the next U.S. president to transfer money away from defense and into education, BLSP released its ‘‘Move Our Money’’ campaign. The ad agency Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos Inc. worked pro bono to create one television spot, one radio spot, and four print ads for the campaign. The radio and television spots featured Jack Shanahan, a retired vice admiral of the U.S. Navy, who explained that even though America had enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over, the U.S. government was still building more. Shanahan explained that the government could allocate a small fraction of its defense budget to help improve America’s education system without compromising the country’s defense. Print ads created by Hill, Holliday’s creative directors Dave Gardiner and Joe Berkeley featured provocative copy, such as ‘‘No wonder our bombs are smarter than our students.’’ The campaign ran from December 1999 to January 2000 to target the New Hampshire and Iowa primary elections. It resurfaced in September 2000 to target the general electorate before the presidential election. The campaign garnered a plethora of ad industry accolades, winning, for example, the Newspaper category at the 2001 International ANDY Awards. According to BLSP, polls tracking public opinion in Des Moines, Iowa, showed that support for shifting 15 percent of the defense budget to education jumped from 45 percent to 72 percent by the Iowa primary’s completion. Unfortunately for BLSP, George W. Bush, who won the 2000 presidential election, supported an increase in military spending.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Even though Cohen still served on Ben & Jerry’s board of directors in the late 1990s, he was no longer responsible for the business’s daily operations. The extra time allowed the entrepreneur to channel his energy into social issues. After he learned of Congress’s plans to balance the national budget by cutting back on social programs to increase the Pentagon’s defense budget, Cohen rallied support for shifting the country’s spending priorities. ‘‘Congress had added nine billion more onto the military budget than the Pentagon had even requested,’’ Cohen said in America’s Graphic Design Magazine. ‘‘And they were going to slip it by in the middle of the night, at the very end of the legislative session.’’
Cohen established BLSP to mobilize America’s business leaders, celebrities, and retired military personnel to help shift 15 percent of the Pentagon’s defense budget to education funding. In April 1999 BLSP launched a bus tour titled ‘‘U Slice the Pie,’’ a campaign that used pie charts to illustrate the federal government’s distribution of funds. Inflatable pie charts, cookies with pie charts in their frosting, and ballpoint pens with pie chart banners were dispensed at political rallies during the 20 months preceding the 2000 presidential election. BLSP was bipartisan and existed in a ‘‘pre-9/11 world,’’ noted Berkeley.
Even the ex-Navy Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who ran for president in 2000, explained in the Boston Globe, ‘‘Look, we’ve been buying C-130s for 10 years’’ (referring to the C-130 Hercules, a military cargo plane). ‘‘We’re going to have a C-130 in every schoolyard in America; there’s no need for much of the equipment we are purchasing.’’
In 1999 Cohen asked Hill, Holliday to create a pro bono campaign for BLSP. ‘‘We talked about doing an emotional visual campaign illustrating school kids who were being cheated by shrinking school funding, but when Ben started giving us the facts about Pentagon spending versus education spending, we were astounded,’’ explained Gardiner. ‘‘The Pentagon was still stockpiling arms and still spending at Cold War levels even though the Cold War had ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall. It made us think that if we could just find a way to present the facts provocatively, people would have the desired emotional reaction.’’

TARGET MARKET
According to Duane Peterson, the manager of BLSP, the December 1999 to January 2000 leg of ‘‘Move Our Money’’ targeted those living within the presidential primary election states of New Hampshire and Iowa. Republican and Democratic pollsters conducted a survey for BLSP, which determined that 45 percent of the Iowa electorate was willing to reduce defense spending by 15 percent. According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, when the same group was told that a 15 percent cut in defense spending would be used to improve education, health care, and other domestic causes, those supporting the defense cut jumped to 59 percent. The majority of those surveyed also agreed that U.S. allies should pay more for their own defense.
In 1999 Preston Daniels, mayor of Des Moines, told Reuters, ‘‘As a lifelong Iowan, I know that we do indeed support sensible priorities, given our state’s populist spirit and unique role in the presidential election.’’ He went on to state, ‘‘Iowans are patriotic, and I do believe we’ve got to stand behind our fighting troops.’’
Once ‘‘Move Our Money’’ rematerialized in
September 2000 before the presidential election, its target extended to the entire electorate. Gardiner and Berkeley, the campaign’s primary architects, designed the campaign to target people who thought about social issues but were misinformed about how the federal budget was distributed. Andrew Greenblatt, a spokesperson for BLSP, explained the general public’s misconception in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. ‘‘The public agrees with us,’’ Greenblatt said. ‘‘Give them a pie chart and ask them to cut it up the way they think reflects our actual spending, and they give a lot less to the military and a lot more to other pressing domestic needs, including education.
When you show them the disparity between what we
Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.
and other nations spend on our military, and when you show them the disparity between what we spend on the military and what we spend on other needs, they can’t believe it.’’

COMPETITION
The journalist Mark Weisbrot wrote in the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the Pentagon had historically posed two rationalizations for its exorbitant defense budget. First, defense spending bolstered overall employment and economic growth. Secondly, military research improved the innovation of other industries such as aerospace, computers, and electronics. John W. Douglass, president of the Aerospace Industries Association of America, disputed the ‘‘Move Our Money’’ campaign in the New York Times. ‘‘Just to try to say that Americans have two choices, education or Pentagon waste, is just an outrageous oversimplification and unfair statement,’’ Douglass said.
Defense contractors such as the Boeing Company, the Northrop Grumman Corporation, and the Lockheed Martin Corporation never launched advertisement to discredit ‘‘Move Our Money.’’ Peterson identified the campaign’s main opposition as ‘‘latent support for authority, deference to the ‘experts,’ and the say-nothing approach of some candidates.’’ Some critics blamed the politicians’ blase´ attitude on the source of their campaign funding. According to Iowa State University’s U-Wire, defense contractors spent $32.3 million on political contributions between 1991 and 1997. The world’s largest defense contractor, Lockheed Martin, posted more than $25 billion in sales for 2000, a year of relative global peace.

MARKETING STRATEGY
Along with Hill, Holliday’s account executive Stever Aubrey, Berkeley and Gardiner developed the advertising strategy that ‘‘if we reduce Pentagon spending a little, we can improve education a lot,’’ according to Gardiner. This concept was derived from information originally provided by Cohen. With a working precept for the campaign, Berkeley and Gardiner set out to create provocative black-and-white newspaper ads that would be ready before the January 2000 New Hampshire primary elections. One newspaper ad featured 1,000 tiny illustrations of nuclear bombs that were divided into 20 rows of 50. The ad’s headline read, ‘‘The first row obliterates civilization. The rest destroy our schools.’’ Another print ad featured a bar graph that displayed the Pentagon’s $300 billion defense budget towering over the $33 billion education budget. The ad’s headline read, ‘‘If only we could blow them away with our S.A.T. scores.’’ Berkeley, who wrote the campaign’s copy, explained, ‘‘We wanted candidates to discuss real issues in the upcoming election instead of focusing on character assassination.’’
The campaign’s most awarded print ad,
‘‘Smarter Bombs,’’ featured the copy ‘‘No wonder our bombs are smarter than our students’’ above the bar graph comparing the defense and education budgets. All print ads included the tagline ‘‘Move Our Money.’’ In late 1999 Cohen performed one of his BLSP demonstrations for the creatives at Hill, Holliday. Cohen dropped one ball bearing (BB) into a cup for every active U.S. nuclear warhead. Berkeley and Gardiner later cast Shanahan to use the same demonstration for a 60-second radio spot. Shanahan began the spot by stating, ‘‘I believe we can improve education in America without compromising our national security. To illustrate my point, I have some BBs here. Imagine each BB is a nuclear bomb.’’ After one BB clinked into a metal cup, Shanahan continued, ‘‘[that] could destroy Hiroshima 15 times over.’’ After five more clinks, Shanahan explained ‘‘[that] wipes out all of Russia. Now, after using those six bombs, this is how many the U.S. has left.’’ The clinking of thousands of BBs followed. Shanahan concluded the spot saying, ‘‘By reducing our nuclear weapons, we could save billions of dollars. That money could be educating our kids. Let’s get the politicians to talk about the real issues.’’ Gardiner conceived the campaign’s only television spot from his childhood memory of the movie Patton, which starred the actor George C. Scott as General Patton. Berkeley explained, ‘‘When [Gardiner] was a kid, he went to see the movie Patton. He was late so the only seats available were in the front row (it was still the era of big movie screens). The movie opens with an extended monologue by General George S. Patton. He makes a speech to unseen troops. He stands on an enormous stage, dwarfed by a gigantic American flag behind him. It’s the kind of image that sticks with you.’’ Shanahan starred in the television spot, and much like Scott was in Patton, he was featured on a stage before a large screen. Shanahan then delivered a message that was similar to his radio spot’s dialogue about the Pentagon’s overstocking of nuclear warheads. Instead of using BBs to vivify America’s stockpile of nuclear weapons, the screen behind Shanahan filled with hundreds of nuclear weapons. The commercial ended with the tagline ‘‘Move Our Money.’’

PAUL NEWMAN
The actor Paul Newman was one of the celebrities to join Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities (BLSP), a nonprofit organization established in 1998 to decrease defense spending and increase educational funding. Explaining in NEA Today why he joined the organization, Newman stated, ‘‘For the cost of one F22 fighter plane—$188 million—we can build 20 new schools. For the $13 billion a year savings we’d gain by reducing nuclear weapons, we could enroll every eligible child in Head Start and cover every uninsured child in America.’’

DESTROYING THE WORLD’S CITIES
In 1999 the United States spent 17 times more on defense than any potential adversary. It also maintained 12,000 nuclear warheads, enough to destroy every city in the world 10 times over. Its number of warheads was more than double the number of nuclear weapons maintained by China, Russia, Iran, Syria, North Korea, and Cuba combined. By maintaining a nuclear arsenal capable of destroying the world’s cities only four times over, America could save $15 billion a year.
Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities

OUTCOME
The ‘‘Move Our Money’’ campaign created by Hill, Holliday collected a Gold and Bronze Pencil at the 2000 One Show Awards. One print ad earned a Bronze Lion at the 2001 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. It also garnered awards (two silver and one bronze) at the Clio Awards. At the 2001 International ANDY Awards, the print ad ‘‘Smarter Bombs’’ was the overall winner in the Newspaper category, one of the most prestigious awards in the advertising industry. Poles tracking public opinion in Des Moines, according to BLSP, showed that support for reallocating 15 percent of the defense budget to education jumped from 45 percent to 72 percent by the 2000 Iowa primary’s completion.
Unfortunately for BLSP, President-Elect George W. Bush announced plans for increasing military funding before he acceded to office. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, propelled Congress to further increase the Pentagon’s budget. In 2002 the Defense Department chose Lockheed Martin as the lead contractor for the Joint Strike Fighter program. The contract was worth an estimated value of $200 billion.

WHEN YOU HAVE IT YOUR WAY, IT JUST TASTES BETTER CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
Despite its overall sales success, Burger King in 1998 embarked on what senior vice president of marketing James Watkins called an ‘‘aggressive evolution’’ of its brand. With industry leader McDonald’shaving taken steps to address a series of high-profile marketing missteps by rolling out a new cooking system designed to improve the taste of its products, Burger King responded with a marketing strategy that focused on the superior taste of its food. The chain’s three-year-old ‘‘Get Your Burger’s Worth’’ slogan was scrapped and replaced with a line that hit McDonald’s in its self-acknowledged weak spot. ‘‘When You Have It Your Way, It Just Tastes Better,’’ boasted the new Burger King television campaign from Ammirati Puris Lintas. ‘‘We will stake Burger King’s future on taste,’’ said Paul Clayton, president of the company’s North American operations.
Since the founding of Burger King in 1954, the Miami-based chain had made food customization, encapsulated by the ‘‘Have It Your Way’’ tag line, a hallmark of its competitive strategy. Burger King restaurants offered traditional fast-food fare in addition to Whopper and BK Broiler sandwiches. The company had grown to become the number two fast-food hamburger chain, with franchisees operating more than 9,800 restaurants in all 50 U.S. states and in 55 countries and territories around the world. Now a subsidiary of London-based Diageo, PLC, one of the world’s leading consumer products businesses whose international portfolio of food and drink brands included Guinness, Pillsbury, Green Giant, Ha¨agen-Dazs, Old El Paso, Progresso, Smirnoff Vodka, Bailey’s Original Irish Creme, and J&B Rare Scotch Whisky, Burger King enjoyed systemwide sales of $10.3 billion in fiscal year 1998.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Burger King was founded by James McLamore and David Edgerton, both of whom had had extensive experience in the restaurant business. They founded the new restaurant around the simple concept of providing the customer with reasonably priced quality food that was served quickly in attractive, clean surroundings. Powered by America’s postwar fast-food boom, the company grew briskly over the ensuing decade. By 1967, when the company was acquired by the Minneapolis-based Pillsbury Company, 8,000 employees were working in 274 different Burger King locations nationwide. Burger King’s success was predicated on its leadership in such areas as product development, decor, service, and advertising. The Whopper sandwich, introduced in 1957, proved an immediate hit and paved the way for future menu innovations. In the late 1990s the Whopper retained its place as one of the best-known hamburger sandwiches in the world, with more than 1.4 billion being sold annually.
Restaurant decor was a second pillar of Burger King’s success. Burger King was the first fast-food chain to introduce dining rooms, allowing customers a chance to eat inside. Drive-through service, designed to satisfy customers on the go, was introduced in 1975 and as of 1999 accounted for approximately 50 percent of Burger King’s business. The company developed a tradition of taking great care in the design and construction of its restaurants.
Burger King’s advertising campaigns also contributed to the company’s success. The company’s first television ad ran on Miami’s only VHF station in 1958. The year after Burger King became a Pillsbury subsidiary, in 1968, the company’s first major promotion, ‘‘The Bigger the Burger the Better the Burger,’’ debuted. In 1974 the landmark ‘‘Have It Your Way’’ campaign was created. Other memorable Burger King advertising campaigns included ‘‘America Loves Burgers and We’re America’s Burger King,’’ ‘‘Make It Special, Make It Burger King,’’ ‘‘Battle of the Burgers,’’ ‘‘Burger King Town,’’ ‘‘We Do It Like You’d Do It,’’ ‘‘Sometimes You’ve Gotta Break the Rules,’’ and ‘‘Your Way, Right Away.’’ The road to the ‘‘When You Have It Your Way, It Just Tastes Better’’ campaign began in late 1993, when Clayton, Burger King’s president, and James B. Adamson, its chief executive officer, initiated an agency review. As a result New York-based Ammirati Puris Lintas was tapped to revive the chain’s ‘‘Have It Your Way’’ theme. In 1996 Burger King executed the new strategy with ads focused on foods and set to popular music from the 1970s and ’80s. The musical spots helped consumers make an emotional connection with Burger King. Two years later ‘‘Have It Your Way’’ returned as an integral part of the burger giant’s advertising.

TARGET MARKET
The fast-food sector was one of the most highly developed in the restaurant industry, with the fast-food hamburger category being perhaps the most competitive. There seemed to be McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King outlets on every corner, and consumers were using increasingly sophisticated criteria to decide where and how to spend their money. In this environment gains in market share became critical. One way in which Burger King had traditionally differentiated itself from its competitors and gained market share was by appealing to customers on the issue of customization. The basic idea, embodied in the ‘‘Have It Your Way’’ slogan, was that consumers had individual needs and were best served by products that could be easily customized for them. There was statistical evidence to indicate that there was a large market for customized products. For example, two-thirds of consumers in a poll done by the consulting firm of Kurt Salmon Associates reported difficulty in finding clothes that fit well. About 36 percent of the respondents said that they were willing to pay 12 to 14 percent more for custom clothes and shoes. It was felt that the same principal applied to other areas, including fast food. This was supported by the fact that in 1998 Burger King enjoyed sales gains when it offered a customized option in side dishes with its value meal items. ‘‘Burger King has been customizing its sandwiches since the company was founded in 1954,’’ said Rob Calderin, vice president of USA Marketing for Burger King, in announcing the program. ‘‘Now, we have taken this one step further. In addition to having great tasting food served just the way you like it, customers can have their choice of french fries or onion rings as part of their Value Meals.’’

COMPETITION
After world leader McDonald’s Corp., Burger King was the number two hamburger fast-food chain. It had about 20 percent of the U.S. market, compared to 45 percent for McDonald’s. In 1997, emboldened by a series of marketing missteps by McDonald’s—including the illfated Arch Deluxe rollout and an abortive 55-cents pricing scheme—Burger King launched an all-out product war. In rapid succession it introduced a new burger, the Big King, and reformulated its french fries. Both were supported with major ad campaigns. According to figures from Competitive Media Reporting, McDonald’s spent $578 million on advertising in 1997, 3.3 percent less than in 1996. At the same time Burger King boosted its ad spending 17.2 percent, to $423 million. With consumer research consistently citing ‘‘better taste’’ as the basis for Burger King’s appeal, McDonald’s in 1998 took steps to improve the quality of its food. Costs to develop, install, and market a new high-tech cooking system were projected at $500 million, with franchise owners picking up at least $300 million of the tab. New toasters were designed to heat buns in just 10 seconds through a combination of radiant and convection heat, 14 seconds faster than the existing system. Holding cabinets with special moisture controls were installed to keep cooked beef and chicken patties hot for up to 20 minutes without drying. In addition, computer software was developed to more accurately project, often within seconds, what items would likely be ordered at specific times of the day.
To accompany the new approach, a new marketing slogan, ‘‘Made for You,’’ was developed. It had echoes of Burger King’s ‘‘Have It Your Way’’ slogan, something that did not go unnoticed at the headquarters of the number two chain. ‘‘We’ve offered ‘Have It Your Way’ since 1974,’’ scoffed Burger King spokesperson Kim Miller. ‘‘What’s the big deal?’’ Nevertheless, the renewed emphasis on food quality represented a sea change for McDonald’s, which had long relied on heat lamps to keep precooked burgers warm.

IF YOU REBUILD IT, THEY WILL COME
Burger King’s ‘‘When You Have It Your Way, It Just Tastes Better’’ may have represented a throwback to the company’s past, but in other areas the fast-food giant was striding boldly into the future. At the same time that the chain was revamping its national advertising, it was looking to boost performance by paying more attention to restaurant operations, newproduct development, and broader marketing.
In 1998 the chain announced that it was embarking on a three-year initiative to spruce up tired stores. Slated for retirement was the tan-and-brick color scheme used in Burger King restaurants, to be supplanted by cobalt blue. Exteriors were to be made brighter with the addition of yellow and red stripes, while the inside walls would be painted a mustard yellow. Even the time-honored Burger King-in-a-bun logo was to be refurbished with a new style of lettering. Other new features included an interactive ‘‘virtual fun center’’ designed for use by children, who were among Burger King’s most important customer; a spaceage drive-through in which patrons could access electronic screens showing them what they had ordered and how much it would cost; and a computer-controlled broiler chamber that could heatmore slowly, allowing for thicker patties such as a planned half-pound burger, tentatively called the Great American. For many Burger King customers the changes were long overdue. Patrons had complained for years about hard-to-read menu boards, crowded eating areas, and tables bolted to the floor. What was their overall impression of the chain? ‘‘ ‘Boring’ would be the right word,’’ cracked Jacqueline McCook, Burger King’s head of strategic planning. ‘‘But they love the food.’’ Consumers, McCook added, were sending Burger King a simple message: ‘‘If you make it a more pleasant environment, we’d come more often.’’ Paul Clayton, president of Burger King’s North American operations, agreed with this assessment. ‘‘The best local-store marketing is a well-run restaurant,’’ he told Advertising Age. ‘‘The better the restaurant delivers the brand, the better they will be. If we have a strong national marketing platform and execute it at the local level, it is a combination that can’t be beat.’’

MARKETING STRATEGY
Burger King had made customizing its sandwiches a hallmark of company philosophy since its founding in 1954 but only began fully promoting the ‘‘Have It Your Way’’ option in 1974. The tag line and its accompanying jingle became synonymous with Burger King in the minds of many consumers.
In 1998 Burger King revived the slogan with the rollout of what was called ‘‘the ultimate Have It Your Way meal’’ at its more than 7,600 restaurants in the United States. Beginning on October 19, Burger King customers could choose french fries or onion rings with any value meal at no extra charge. The side-order option was considered a logical extension of the ‘‘Have It Your Way’’ concept.
To emphasize the connection with the past, the burger giant assigned Matthew Berger, son of the original ‘‘Have It Your Way’’ jingle writer, Dennis Berger, to update the lyrics. ‘‘Value meals with rings or fries/Still cost the same with one great price,’’ warbled singers in a new set of radio and television commercials. ‘‘You don’t have to ask us twice to have it your way.’’ To spearhead the new campaign, Burger King continued using popular ads that mixed food shots and classic rock and soul songs, while also adding more spots showing customers enjoying the chain’s food.
As the campaign progressed, Burger King developed a series of new big-budget image- building television ads. In one a drill sergeant berated a group of recruits who must do everything the sergeant’s way, except when it came to ‘‘having it their way’’ at Burger King. A second spot blended part of a 1973 ad with new footage to create a striking retro effect. A third ad took a more whimsical approach. Two men wearing 1970s leisure suits walked into a Burger King and ordered a Whopper without pickles. Three women emerged from behind the counter and began singing the ‘‘Have It Your Way’’ song. The ad then cut back to 1998, as the same two men, now balding and graying—but still clothed in polyester—ordered onion rings instead of fries and received the identical serenade.
An even more imaginative execution of the ‘‘When You Have It Your Way, It Just Tastes Better’’ theme was staged in time for the Fourth of July. On the holiday weekend Burger King for the first time aired brand image television spots directed exclusively to children that stressed the longevity and practical application of its customization process. ‘‘Burger King has been customizing burgers since being established in 1954 and we plan to pass that core equity message on to a new generation,’’ said Calderin. ‘‘These advertisements send that message. As most parents would agree, kids can be fairly choosy eaters. The children’s television spot in particular, lets them know they can have it their way at Burger King.’’ In addition to the television spot, on July 2 Burger King placed a full-page advertisement in USA Today saluting the Declaration of Independence and the Fourth of July. The ad playfully reminded readers that America’s founding fathers were the first group to ‘‘have it their way.’’ ‘‘Burger King and Independence Day have a lot in common,’’ remarked Calderin. ‘‘We both adhere to the ‘Have It Your Way’ principle. This nation’s founding fathers set the tone a long time ago by having it their way, and we’ve followed their lead.’’

OUTCOME
Burger King’s new commercials reprising the ‘‘Have It Your Way’’ jingle may have scored points for nostalgia, but they did not prove popular with consumers. In a survey conducted by USA Today, only 17 percent of participants said that they liked the commercials ‘‘a lot.’’ Of those surveyed, people with a household income of $25,000 to $35,000 a year responded most favorably to the ads. Thirty-three percent of African Americans said that they liked the commercials a lot, compared with 14 percent of whites. Perhaps more encouraging for Burger King was the response of young people, a key target for fast-food companies. Respondents between the ages of 25 and 29 were more enthusiastic than other age groups, with 26 percent of them reporting that they liked the commercials a lot. The commercials did receive higher scores for effectiveness, with 23 percent of respondents rating the commercials as ‘‘very effective.’’ Despite the lukewarm response in the survey, Burger King officials remained satisfied with the ‘‘When You Have It Your Way, It Just Tastes Better’’ theme. The company’s ad director, Andy Bonaparte, reported that the commercials increased traffic in Burger King restaurants. ‘‘Response has been positive so far,’’ he told USA Today. Many corporate image specialists agreed that the retro ads would prove to be a compelling platform for the chain. ‘‘ ‘Have it your way’ was the biggest idea Burger King ever had, and it’s still very relevant today,’’ claimed Allen Adamson of Landor Associates. ‘‘No one else has grabbed that positioning, so they’re smart to bring that back.’’

SUBSERVIENT CHICKEN CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
By 2004 Burger King’s position as the second-largest hamburger company in the world was waning. With a worsening brand image and an unshakable image for poor food quality, the chain was forced to shut down hundreds of stores. Following a flurry of CEO and ad agency turnovers, Burger King awarded Miami-based ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky a $350 million advertising budget to reshape its image. ‘‘We weren’t a brand that suffered from lack of awareness,’’ Russ Klein, Burger King’s chief marketing officer, told Advertising Age, ‘‘but we were a brand that suffered from a lack of emotional attachment.’’ Crispin Porter + Bogusky resurrected Burger King’s 1974 tagline ‘‘Have it your way’’ for ‘‘Subservient Chicken,’’ one of its first campaigns for the firm. The campaign was launched on April 8, 2004, immediately following Burger King’s introduction of the Tendercrisp Chicken Sandwich.
The campaign began with E-mail messages that directed recipients to SubservientChicken.com. A week later three 30-second spots were aired on network television, followed by a print ad that also directed people to the website. The website, which served as the core of the campaign, featured a person wearing a chicken costume who acted out whatever command was typed into the command bar. More than 400 commands had been filmed by Crispin Porter + Bogusky beforehand to correspond to possible commands. The website had the feel of a webcam, suggesting that the chicken was standing inside an apartment just waiting to act out the visitor’s next prompt.
Considered a bold approach when it first appeared, the ‘‘Subservient Chicken’’ campaign collected a number of creative awards, including Best in Show at the One Show Interactive, the Grand Clio, and the Yahoo Big Idea Chair Award. Within the first 24 hours the website had received more than a million hits, with this number soaring to an impressive 385 million hits by April 2005. Visitors spent an average of six minutes interacting with the site. Not only did the ‘‘Subservient Chicken’’ campaign see Burger King’s 21-month sales decline stop, but sales actually improved so much that in 2004 Burger King’s growth surpassed its principal competitor, McDonald’s Corporation.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Founded in 1954, Burger King had grown to include more than 11,000 fast-food restaurants, most privately owned franchises, by 2005. Early on, Burger King allowed franchisees to buy stores, which stimulated rapid expansion. Quality and consistency varied between stores, however, a flaw that had haunted Burger King for decades. From the beginning Burger King also used the ‘‘Have it your way’’ tagline to emphasize its restaurants’ ability to prepare food to accommodate customers’ tastes, a stab at the fixed menu of McDonald’s. With the emergence in the late 1990s of restaurant chains touting healthier food, such as Starbucks Corporation and Jamba Juice Company, competition grew even fiercer among fast-food giants like Burger King, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Jack in the Box. To adjust to the emphasis on healthier eating, Burger King introduced low-carbohydrate options, including more salads. Brad Blum, CEO of Burger King in 2002, increased sales by adorning the menu with the Angus Steak Burger and Fire-Grilled Salads.
Burger King continued to fire agencies that created commercials with close-up shots of food, also known in the industry as ‘‘playing up the grill,’’ a common technique used in McDonald’s advertisements. Young & Rubicam, the agency that preceded Crispin Porter + Bogusky, had introduced Burger King’s ‘‘Fire’s Ready’’ campaign, but the agency was sacked after only 10 months. ‘‘There’s a young guy product that basically all of the greatest advertising in the world is built around—that’s beer. Here we have the exact same audience [as beer marketers]. Yet, in general, you have some of the worst advertising in the world,’’ Alex Bogusky, a partner at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, told Brandweek. ‘‘Since they both have the same target there’s no reason the fast food category has to be so lame. It’s just gotten that way.’’ Until Wendy’s released its own chicken sandwiches, Burger King’s Original Chicken Sandwich had been the market leader in this food item. In response to Wendy’s move, Burger King began using higher grade meat and other ingredients to create its new Tendercrisp Chicken Sandwich. A month after the sandwich was introduced, in March 2004, Crispin Porter + Bogusky launched the ‘‘Subservient Chicken’’ campaign. It was a time when Burger King was floundering. ‘‘It’s not like you know you’re getting the chance to work on a resurgent brand. You get a chance to work on a damaged brand. When we started on this, business was not too good [for Burger King],’’ Bogusky told Brandweek. ‘‘They were ready to take some risks.’’

TARGET MARKET
The ‘‘Subservient Chicken’’ campaign targeted 16- to 35-year-old males who were engaged with ‘‘online nontraditional’’ advertising. Crispin Porter + Bogusky hoped that the campaign would deviate from Burger King’s traditional strategy, which was simply to mimic McDonald’s advertising. Copying the strategy of the market leader, according to Crispin Porter + Bogusky, made Burger King seem to be just a smaller version, which was not something the public wanted. Crispin Porter + Bogusky attempted to make Burger King ‘‘popular’’ with its target market, believing that the popularity of the brand would then spread into other demographics. Jeff Hicks, Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s president, told Brandweek, ‘‘We talk a lot about the ‘cool uncle.’ The voice of the brand is that cool uncle who may be closer to your age than your father’s. He’s the kind of guy who might say, ‘Hey, take a year off from college and go travel.’ He’s got a little more of an adolescent voice than your parents but he’s also got a little bit of experience. That’s the voice we like for the brand.’’
Known for creating interactive, viral campaigns, that is, advertising spread by word of mouth, Crispin Porter + Bogusky began by steering away from traditional media. ‘‘What struck me was their holistic view,’’ Klein told Advertising Age’s Creativity. ‘‘They solve brand problems from the ground up. They don’t necessarily gravitate to thirty-second TV commercials as a tonic for every marketing problem. They are not only a big believer but also a practitioner of word of mouth marketing—they understand what it takes to generate strong advocacy among the core customer.’’ Neither Burger King nor Crispin Porter + Bogusky wanted a mass-market campaign, choosing instead to use a specific channel for reaching 16- to 35-year-old male Internet users. ‘‘If you are going to be targeted,’’ Klein continued, ‘‘you have to deliver something that is relevant to that target.’’

COMPETITION
McDonald’s, the giant of fast-food firms, was founded in 1948 and by 1962 had served its billionth hamburger. ‘‘Billions served’’ became the company’s tagline, and by 2002 McDonald’s was spending more than $600 million per year on advertising. By 2002 the company operated more than 30,000 stores, almost triple the number of Burger King’s. Each McDonald’s restaurant obtained food from an authorized supplier, ensuring that a Big Mac tasted the same in Miami, Florida, for example, as it did in Anchorage, Alaska. McDonald’s advertising campaigns traditionally included cross-promotions that involved toys and movies, with Walt Disney Studio Entertainment being one of its longest-running partners. The McDonald’s Teenie Beanie Babies giveaway of 1997, for example, proved to be one of the company’s biggest successes. By 2005, however, McDonald’s was aggressively fighting to retain its breakfast market. Between 1995 and 2005, 36 percent of its breakfast customers had left for retailers like Starbucks, which served higher-priced Arabica coffees. Research showed that coffee, unlike breakfast sandwiches, brought consumers back to the same store every day, and so McDonald’s responded by introducing a richer Robusta blend titled ‘‘Premium.’’ An aggressive ad campaign followed, with one television spot showing a woman sipping McDonald’s Premium coffee and enjoying a McGriddle sandwich while fantasizing, ‘‘I fired my boss’’ and ‘‘I married a rock star.’’
With more than 6,000 stores by 2002, Wendy’s had gained the position of the third-largest fast-food chain in the world. Wendy’s, which had a substantial menu that included alternatives to hamburgers, presented itself as a higher-quality alternative to McDonald’s and Burger King. Dave Thomas, who had founded the company in 1969, often served as its spokesperson, and over the years he appeared in more than 800 commercials. The corporation’s best-known ad campaign—‘‘Where’s the Beef?’’ with actress Clara Peller—appeared in 1984, and Wendy’s market share immediately jumped 12 percent. When Thomas died in 2002 Wendy’s turned to more conventional advertising, however. By 2005 the corporation was suffering losses from the rising price of beef, the emergence of healthier fast-food alternatives, and a hoax by a woman who claimed that she had found a severed finger in her Wendy’s chili.

MARKETING STRATEGY
To add a healthier chicken sandwich to its menu Burger King introduced the high-quality Tendercrisp Chicken Sandwich on March 19, 2004. It was while planning another spot for Burger King that Jeff Benjamin, Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s interactive creative director, came up with the idea of the ‘‘Subservient Chicken’’ campaign. He instructed his crew to film an actor wearing a chicken costume that had been designed by the Stan Winston Studio. The actor was instructed to perform more than 400 short actions. The filming took place inside the apartment of a friend of Benjamin’s that was furnished with only a modest lamp and two couches. ‘‘Our approach has always been, ‘Follow the work,’ ’’ Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s Jeff Steinhour told Fast Company. ‘‘Meaning if ever you’re in doubt about a decision, simply ask whether it’s going to make the work better.’’
Benjamin activated the campaign website,
SubservientChicken.com, on April 9, 2004. Once a visitor had entered the website, the text ‘‘Contacting the chicken’’ appeared on a black background and with the Burger King logo. Below, in a command bar, visitors were prompted, ‘‘Get chicken just the way you like it. Type in your command here.’’ The chicken waited patiently, supposedly before a webcam, for the commands. Included in the chicken’s repertoire were commands like ‘‘Dance,’’ ‘‘Cluck,’’ ‘‘Play baseball,’’ and ‘‘Get into the Lotus position.’’ If the chicken was asked to perform something inappropriate, impossible, or not on the list, it simply approached the camera and wagged its finger in admonishment. The overall effect was that the chicken seemed to be executing commands live. As the project neared completion, on April 8, Benjamin E-mailed 20 people the website’s URL. Without any serious promotion the website had registered more than one million hits by the end of the day. The following week three 30-second spots were aired on late-night network television. The spots featured scenes from the website, for example, the chicken acting out commands before young adults. In another spot a man commanded the chicken to try on different clothing. Only one print ad was released for the campaign. This ad, which featured a cutout of a chicken mask, appeared in an October issue of ESPN’s magazine. ‘‘I would describe what we’re doing as making BK unique,’’ Bogusky told Brandweek. ‘‘Sometimes that makes people uncomfortable. Viewers may look at the advertising and say, ‘You can’t talk that way’ or ‘That’s kind of weird.’ It’s only weird because there’s only been one voice [in the category] with any consistency and that’s been McDonald’s. So we’re all conditioned to say, that’s how fast food advertising should look, be and sound.’’

CHICKEN GARTER BELT
The bizarre chicken outfit, spoofing other more salacious websites, came complete with a garter belt. The costume was designed by Stan Winston, the same designer involved in movies like Aliens, Terminator, and Jurassic Park.

OUTCOME
Despite the low cost of the ‘‘Subservient Chicken’’ campaign, it garnered some of the advertising industry’s foremost honors, including a Grand Clio, Best in Show at the One Show Interactive, and the Yahoo Big Idea Chair Award. After being online for only one month, the chicken had performed its millionth request. After one year the site had had approximately 14 million visitors and 396 million hits. Andy Bonaparte, a Burger King ad director, told Adweek that the campaign helped ‘‘sell a lot, a lot, a lot of chicken sandwiches.’’ During the campaign Burger King’s 21-month sales decline stopped and turned around. Burger King’s sales growth was soon outperforming McDonald’s. Sales of the Tendercrisp sandwich consistently increased at an average of 9 percent a week until it eventually sold more than the firm’s other chicken offering, the Original Chicken Sandwich. Matt Vescovo, one of the judges responsible for honoring the ‘‘Subservient Chicken’’ campaign with a gold during the Viral Awards show, was effusive in his praise of the campaign. He told Adweek, ‘‘To take that idea [that you can have chicken any way you like it] for something that really isn’t that exciting—a chicken sandwich—and to so seamlessly put it into such an innovative use of technology, it just really hit so many sweet spots for me.’’

LUNCH BREAK CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
Because of what appeared to be a revolving door in its executive suite, as well as a steady drop in customer traffic, which was blamed on inconsistent food quality and poor customer service, Burger King was in search of a way to reestablish its brand identity and to rebuild sales. According to Advertising Age, in January 2004 Burger King had at the helm its nineteenth chief executive in its 50-year history, and at the same time the fast-food chain was struggling with a 22 percent decline in customer traffic that had begun in the late 1990s. Adding to the company’s problems was a lack of consistency in its advertising. As Advertising Age noted, ‘‘Advertising has often been the scapegoat for sliding sales, with fours shops getting axed in the past four years.’’ Although Kevin Keller, a marketing professor at Dartmouth College, told Advertising Age that Burger King had ‘‘a brand problem, not an advertising problem,’’ the company joined with the Miami-based advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky to help implement a turnaround. The agency reintroduced ‘‘Have it your way,’’ a popular tagline from the 1970s, and in February 2004 launched a marketing campaign, ‘‘Lunch Break,’’ designed to appeal to its target audience, 18- to 34-year-olds who ate fast food and many of whom worked in offices. A series of television spots, which resembled an abbreviated sitcom, featured a cast of office workers ordering lunch from Burger King. Burger King’s return to the ‘‘Have it your way’’ tagline and the new ‘‘Lunch Break’’ campaign seemed to achieve the company’s goals of reconnecting with its target audience and rebuilding sales. According to Burger King, for 10 consecutive months following the launch of the campaign, sales increased. Same-store sales in November 2004 were up 8.6 percent in franchised restaurants and up 14.2 percent in company-owned restaurants. The campaign was also recognized with awards at the 2004 Cannes Lions and the Clios.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Since opening its first restaurant in 1954, Burger King had grown to more than 11,200 restaurants in all 50 U.S. states and in 60 other countries, and it reported systemwide sales of $11.1 billion in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2003. The company aired its first television spot, ‘‘Home of the Whopper,’’ in 1958, and its first major advertising campaign, ‘‘The Bigger the Burger the Better the Burger,’’ was launched in 1968. Other campaigns followed, including the company’s best-known and most successful, ‘‘Have It Your Way,’’ which was introduced in 1974.
Despite the success of ‘‘Have It Your Way,’’ the campaign was scrapped and replaced by what USA Today described as ‘‘forgettable themes,’’ including ‘‘Best Darn Burger’’ in 1978, ‘‘Burger King Town’’ in 1986, and ‘‘The Whopper Says’’ in 2001. Burger King seemed constantly to be changing its ad campaigns, but the new themes failed to resonate with consumers. As Burger King’s customer traffic continued to slip, it appeared that the number-three fast-food chain, Wendy’s, was ready to push Burger King from its second-place position and to settle in behind the number-one chain, McDonald’s. In an effort to draw its customers back and to rebuild sales, Burger King took action in 2004 by reintroducing the ‘‘Have it your way’’ tagline in the ‘‘Lunch Break’’ campaign.

TARGET MARKET
Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s Steve Sapka said that the ‘‘Lunch Break’’ campaign targeted ‘‘burger-craving Gen X and Gen Yers who demanded personalization and customization in every aspect of daily life. With much of that audience spending day after day at the office, BK knew that the relationships reflected in the ‘Lunch Break’ campaign would resonate well and get the brand message and product attributes out in an entertaining and relevant way.’’
Reintroducing the ‘‘Have it your way’’ tagline also appealed to another market, baby boomers who were looking for products and symbols reminiscent of their childhoods. In a discussion of the retro trend in culture and of its influence on the ways in which companies were marketing their products, Schuyler Brown, managing director of trends for Euro RSCG, told USA Today, ‘‘We’re all nostalgic for the loss of our childhood. Kids are getting too old too fast. Adults are trying to hold on to their youth.’’
Although an Ad Track survey by USA Today reported that ‘‘consumers overall have mixed feelings about the return to ‘Have it your way’ . . . the ads score highest in likability and effectiveness with 18- to 24-yearolds.’’ Russ Klein, the chief marketing officer of Burger King, told USA Today that it was all right that the survey results were skewed toward the young: ‘‘Our core group is 18 to 34 years old. We understand it’s more important to be provocative than pleasant with this group.’’

COMPETITION
During an early ad campaign Burger King had referred to itself as ‘‘America’s Burger King,’’ but over the years it remained firmly entrenched in second place behind the fast-food giant McDonald’s and just ahead of the numberthree chain, Wendy’s. As the Evansville Courier & Press noted, ‘‘McDonald’s and Burger King have been going burger-to-burger for more than 30 years, with Wendy’s and smaller companies also fighting for consumers’ hearts and appetites . . . A price war between the two that stepped up in 2002 weakened profits and produced only mixed results, with Wendy’s steering clear and picking up steady gains.’’
To try to bounce back from weakened profits, McDonald’s, according to USA Today, had reinvented itself ‘‘as a place for the young and hip—not just for the Happy Meal set.’’ In 2003 McDonald’s introduced a new theme, ‘‘I’m Lovin’ It,’’ and planned its first global ad campaign to coincide with the new marketing approach. Jurgen Krauss, the CEO of Heye & Partner, the agency based in Munich, Germany, that had created the new theme, said that his ‘‘plan is to make McDonald’s ‘a lifestyle’ not just a place to eat.’’ USA Today reported that ‘‘McDonald’s has reason to crow’’ about its marketing strategy, since the chain’s same-store sales experienced the biggest increase in four years, with stock shares climbing close to a nine-month high.
While Wendy’s sales grew during a Burger King- McDonald’s price war in 2002, the death in that year of Dave Thomas, the company’s founder and key spokesman, created new problems for the chain. Following Thomas’s death, Wendy’s struggled but failed to find an effective method to reach consumers, and according to Advertising Age, same-store sales for 2002 dropped in company-owned and franchised restaurants by 2.9 and 1.8 percent, respectively. In 2005, however, Wendy’s changed its marketing strategy by ‘‘shedding its folksy ª Roland Weihrauch/dpa/Corbis image and one-size-fits-all message,’’ reported AdAge.com. Wendy’s new theme, ‘‘Do What Tastes Right,’’ was designed to set the company apart from the competition, reflect the flexibility of its menu, and appeal to three consumer groups: baby boomers, who were Wendy’s core customers; young adults; and Generation Zers, that is, the teens who were the customers of the future. Much as Burger King turned back the clock by reintroducing the ‘‘Have it your way’’ tagline, Wendy’s returned to its ‘‘square hamburger roots.’’ The company also increased its marketing budget, and while it did not introduce a global ad campaign, as McDonald’s had, it did venture into Internet advertising. Speaking of the new marketing strategy, Ian Rowden, Wendy’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer, told AdAge.com, ‘‘We can leverage what we have to different groups. One message at one time broadly targeted for one group doesn’t play anymore for Wendy’s.’’

Marketing Strategy
Burger King stated that its advertising campaigns had contributed to the company’s success, and to keep that success going Brad Blum, the company’s CEO in 2004, said in a January 2004 press release, ‘‘We must have groundbreaking, next-level, results-oriented, and innovative advertising that strongly connects with our core consumers.’’ Greg Brenneman, who replaced Blum as CEO in 2005, told Newsweek that the company’s core consumers were identified when he reviewed a market study ‘‘that showed hard-core fast foodies made up only 18 percent of the population but accounted for 49 percent of business.’’ Brenneman’s priority became providing food options that appealed to the target audience of 18- to 34-year-old men ‘‘who like football and are ‘gray collar’ workers, because their jobs aren’t a bright spot in their lives.’’ Burger King’s Klein told USA Today that the return to ‘‘Have it your way,’’ the tagline that had worked well in the past, was long overdue: ‘‘When you have an ad campaign that sticky, it’s foolish to go against it,’’ he said. Andrew Keller, creative director at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, added, ‘‘At a time when self-expression and mass customization are critical elements of culture, the line makes total sense.’’
In the ‘‘Lunch Break’’ spots a cast of sitcom-style characters known as the ‘‘Lunch Break gang’’ ordered from Burger King, competing to see who could concoct the most unusual Whopper. The competition between the 20-something office staffers heated up with each new commercial. In one spot two coworkers clashed when one ‘‘copied’’ the other’s Whopper order, and in another spot a worker claimed the title as ‘‘champion’’ when he ordered his Whopper with ‘‘no lettuce, extra ketchup, double bacon, double mayo, and two extra beef patties.’’ Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s ‘‘Lunch Break’’ campaign aimed to achieve three goals. It reached the primary target audience of 18- to 34-year-old office workers, it restored Burger King’s cultural relevance by bringing back the ‘‘Have it your way’’ tagline, and it reestablished brand identity.
According to the agency’s Sapka, ‘‘With little room for personalization in the fast food experience, BK had the opportunity to own customization in the category, which was the campaign’s intent.’’ Sapka said that it was because the ‘‘Lunch Break’’ gang’s unique sandwich orders were so effective at promoting Burger King and at returning the ‘‘Have it your way’’ mantra to pop culture that they returned at the end of 2004 in ads tied to the SpongeBob SquarePants movie. In 2005 they were back promoting the Angus Steak Burger, the Tendercrisp, and the Big Fish. Brian Gies, Burger King’s vice president of marketing impact, told Chain Leader, ‘‘As long as it [the ‘‘Lunch Break’’ campaign] stays fresh and relevant, we’ll continue to keep it in the mix.’’

BURGER KING RETURNS TO POP CULTURE TO LAUNCH NEW BURGER
With the success in using popular television shows like The Office and Seinfeld as the theme for its ‘‘Lunch Break’’ marketing campaign, which featured a sitcomstyle cast of 20-something office workers ordering lunch from the fast-food restaurant, Burger King turned in 2005 to another pop-culture venue—reality TV—to launch a new product and to support its marketing campaign. For this campaign Burger King partnered with business mogul Donald Trump for the season premiere of his reality TV show, The Apprentice. According to the company, the challenge for the two teams on Trump’s show, called ‘‘Street Smarts’’ and ‘‘Book Smarts,’’ was to ‘‘name, build, market, and sell a new menu item at Burger King restaurants.’’ At the end of the episode the Street Smarts team had won, with its product—the Angus Steak Burger—available to customers for a limited time at Burger Kings nationwide. Russ Klein, the company’s chief marketing officer, said of the project, ‘‘At Burger King, our have it your way philosophy puts our customers in charge. It’s all about empowerment and getting what you want, when you want it. That’s why we couldn’t wait to take this burger from the boardroom to the lunchroom.’’

OUTCOME
The ‘‘Lunch Break’’ ads were believed to have had a strong influence on the resurgence of sales at Burger King. Gies told Chain Leader that the ads had been ‘‘an important contributor to the brand’s momentum. The campaign has done great things for brand recall, message recall, and likeability.’’
WWD recognized two of the ‘‘Lunch Break’’ spots by including them on its list of the 10 most effective new TV commercials launched during the last week of February 2004, and Adweek included the campaign in its list of best spots. Adweek wrote that Burger King’s campaign ‘‘managed to create characters who, despite their oddball antics (or maybe because of them), feel familiar and almost always funny . . . The casting and dialogue are superb, and the spots also seem to spark stomach rumbling, so CP+B must be doing something right.’’ ‘‘Lunch Break’’ campaign spots also won the Silver Award at the 2004 Cannes Lions and Bronze Awards at the Clios.
Not every review of the campaign was positive, however. Lewis Lazare, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, called the ‘‘Lunch Break’’ spots ‘‘a stylistic mishmash if ever there were one.’’ Lazare wrote that the ‘‘story line and underlying message are confusing . . . And, sadly, the message about getting burgers done your way at Burger King seems to be diminished by all the silent sturm und drang.’’ According to USA Today ’s weekly poll, Ad Track, only 14 percent of those familiar with the ads liked them ‘‘a lot’’ and thought that they were ‘‘very effective,’’ while 30 percent were found to ‘‘dislike’’ the ads.

THE NEW COLOR OF MONEY CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
With the availability of digital technology such as scanners and high-quality color printers, the ability of counterfeiters to produce excellent facsimiles of U.S. currency forced the U.S. Treasury to introduce new note designs on a more regular basis. In addition, high-tech security measures had to be developed to counteract the advances made by counterfeiters. In 2003 a new $20 bill—featuring new colors and graphics as well as anticounterfeiting devices such as watermarks and embedded security strips—was ready to be introduced to the public. Public relations firm Burson-Marsteller was hired to take charge of a marketing campaign to unveil the new twenty and create a smooth transition when the notes entered the economy. The $32 million campaign was a multipronged effort seeking to reach as many people in the United States as possible. In addition to using materials such as posters, brochures, and training videos aimed at alerting cashiers to the new security measures, ‘‘The New Color of Money’’ tried to reach a mass audience through entertainment channels, in particular television. The campaign included television spots, but it also relied on product placements, akin to the marketing of consumer goods. The new $20 bill was highlighted on television game shows as well as on prime-time dramas. It became the subject of conversations on morning news programming and of jokes by late-night comedians. The twenty also appeared on billboards, atop taxi cabs, in subway cars, and on Internet ads.
The ‘‘New Color of Money’’ campaign came to a close after the new $20 bill was formally unveiled in October 2002, accompanied by ceremonies staged across the country. The campaign achieved a great deal of recognition for the twenty with the general public. The transition was not without some bumps, however, nor did it lack critics who questioned the need to spend tax dollars on something people had no choice but to use.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The United States government had always taken steps to thwart forgery of its currency, in large measure to its experience in breaking away from the British; as part of its war effort Britain counterfeited the new Continental currency to make it worthless and wreck the economy of the fledgling republic. In about 1820, as an example of an early countermeasure, copper printing plates were replaced with steel ones because they produced uniform engravings and allowed for more complicated patterns on banknotes, thus complicating the task of counterfeiting. Nevertheless, counterfeiters continued to ply their trade, aided by the lack of a uniform currency. By the time of the Civil War some 1,600 state banks were issuing their own bills, resulting in about 7,000 varieties of notes, which made the task of determining real from fake all the more difficult. The Secret Service, today known for its role in protecting the president of the United States, was actually formed in 1865 to thwart counterfeiting. It was not until 30 years later that its agents began moonlighting as bodyguards for President Cleveland. A common way to deter counterfeiting in the twentieth century was to change the design of the notes regularly. Most countries altered patterns every 15 to 20 years, although the United States tended to wait longer. By the 1990s, however, new technology made the job of the counterfeiter much easier, forcing the U.S. government to begin changing the design of its notes on a regular basis, roughly every seven years. In 1996 new $100 notes were introduced, followed by $50 notes in 1997, $20 notes in 1998, and $5 and $10 notes in 2000. The U.S. Department of the Treasury hired publicrelations firm Burson-Marsteller in 1996 to spearhead a worldwide public education campaign to introduce the newly designed currency.
In 2002 Burson-Marsteller was hired again, this time to introduce the new colorized $20 bill, which would be followed by other denominations. The most noticeable changes to the new $20 bill were cosmetic. According to Tara Ross, a Texas attorney writing for the American Enterprise, ‘‘Peach and blue colors appear on the bill, but they are subtle. Andrew Jackson remains, but without the oval that used to surround his portrait. A blue eagle now appears to his right and a smaller eagle to his left. Several dozen little yellow [20s] appear across the back on the bill.’’ In addition to the first use since 1905 of colors beyond green and black, the new $20 bill included several new anticounterfeiting features, including colorshifting ink, so that colors changed as the note was tilted; a watermark pressed into the paper and visible from both sides when held up to the light; and a security thread (a plastic strip) embedded in the paper, that in small print spelled out the denomination of the bill.
Unlike the previous rollout of new currency, however, this time Burson-Marsteller was joined by the Hollywood talent agency William Morris Agency, which would endeavor to secure ‘‘bit parts’’ for the new $20 bill on television shows and in movies. Omnicom Group’s Davie-Brown Entertainment was also engaged to help in the marketing effort. It was all part of the $32 million ª Joseph Sohm; Visions of America/Corbis ‘‘The New Color of Money, Safer. Smarter. More Secure’’ marketing campaign to introduce to the world the new $20 bill, which was set to begin distribution through commercial banks on October 9, 2003.

TARGET MARKET
While in a sense the target audience for the ‘‘New Color of Money’’ campaign was every person in the world who was old enough to spend money, the focus of the campaign was on the United States. (A global public education effort would follow, highly important because 60 percent of U.S. currency was held overseas.) The campaign’s purpose was to ensure a smooth transition to the new $20 bill, making sure that the general public expected the change and understood that both old and new currency would be accepted. Perhaps of even more importance was making people who handled cash as part of their jobs, especially cashiers, aware of the new security measures. Richard I. Mintz, chairman of the publicaffairs division of Burson-Marsteller, told Betsy Streisand of the New York Times that the goal of the campaign was relatively simple: ‘‘We want to build awareness—then we can begin to change behavior.’’ Streisand added, ‘‘The behavior that he wants to change includes stuffing the $20 bill, the most frequently counterfeited in the United States, into a pocket or cash register before checking its authenticity by, say, holding it up to a light or feeling for the security thread.’’

COMPETITION
The main competition for the new $20 bill was fake $20 bills. The elaborate security measures incorporated in the new note came in response to readily available digital technology—scanners, color printers, and software—that gave rise to casual forgers, such as college students colorcopying a $20 bill to fool the pizza-delivery person, and provided powerful new tools for criminal forgers. It was estimated that less than 1 percent of counterfeit notes uncovered in the United States in 1995 were digitally produced. By the time the new $20 bill was introduced, that number had ballooned to almost 40 percent. On another level the new twenty faced competition in the media, because its message had to vie with countless others for the attention of the public. It was for this reason that the William Morris Agency was hired; by placing the new note in a variety of different situations on television, the chances of reaching a mass audience were greatly increased.

MONEY MATTERS
Although hard currency remained highly important in the United States, at the time that the campaign ‘‘The New Color of Money’’ appeared, cash was used to make purchases less frequently than in the past. According to the Nielson Report, 25 percent of purchases made in the United States in 1990 involved cash. By 2002 that number had dropped to 19 percent. The share was expected to be just 10 percent by 2020.

MARKETING STRATEGY
The ‘‘New Color of Money’’ campaign entailed the distribution of more than 37 million items of training materials, such as brochures, posters, training videos, and CD-ROMs, geared for cash-handling workers. There was also a website, www.moneyfactory.gov/newmoney, where people could learn more about the new anticounterfeit devices. A certain amount of coverage could also be expected from the news media. But in order to cast as wide a net as possible, the campaign also included television spots, promotional events, product placements, and joint marketing efforts. In addition, the new note even became fodder for late-night comedians. David Letterman commented that it looked like it had undergone a makeover from the guys on the hit show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. It was not a surprising moment, given that representatives from the William Morris Agency had met weeks earlier with the writers for Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and other late-night programs to tell them about the new $20 bill. They did not care if the hosts poked fun at the bill, as long as they brought attention to it. Other exposure through entertainment channels included appearances on the game shows Wheel of Fortune, Pepsi Play for a Billion, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and Jeopardy. Joint marketing deals were arranged with such partners as Wal-Mart and Pepperidge Farm. The latter put a picture of the new bill on its Goldfish cracker packages. The crackers themselves were colored to match the twenties, and the company also developed a contest around the new bill, offering a trip to Washington, D.C., as a prize. Like contemporary consumer products, the $20 bill was placed in movies and television shows, including CSI: Miami, The West Wing, and Law & Order. It was even electronically superimposed on the field during college football games on ESPN and during NFL games on Monday Night Football on ABC.
The campaign employed outdoor elements. A major billboard in New York City’s Times Square was leased. Taxi toppers were procured in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Posters were put up in subways and bus shelters in such cities as Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco.
‘‘The New Color of Money’’ also included a pair of television spots. In one a man withdrew money from an ATM and paused to inspect the new $20 bills that he received. While he displayed obvious pleasure in what he saw, an announcer commented, ‘‘You can see right away that things are different. We’ve added color and changed the portrait.’’ The man then bought flowers from a vendor, who was equally impressed. After noting the security features and assuring the audience that both old and new twenties were legal tender, the announcer closed with the ‘‘safer, smarter, more secure’’ tagline. In the second spot, called ‘‘Sleight of Hand,’’ a man in a music store received a new $20 bill in change after buying a CD. While the announcer listed the new features of the bill, accompanied by guitar riffs and record scratching, the man spun the bill on his finger and performed a number of other special-effects tricks, impressing the store clerk, who applauded at the end of the demonstration. A woman then stepped up to the counter and asked, ‘‘Can I get a new twenty?’’ On the day the bill began distribution, the campaign organized a number of promotional events that received widespread news coverage. It was featured on NBC’s Today Show, and cohost Katie Couric became the first New Yorker to purchase something—a cup of coffee at Dean & Deluca—with the new twenty. In Washington, D.C., the first of the new $20 bills was used by the head of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to buy stamps from a vending machine. It was a calculated choice: in the 1990s the introduction of the new $20 bill was marred by problems with the same Post Office machines, which had not been properly prepared to accept the notes. More than 30 other similar events took place in cities across the country.

OUTCOME
The ‘‘New Color of Money’’ campaign succeeded in its core mission of garnering attention for the release of the new $20 bill. According to Burson-Marsteller, the campaign achieved an 82 percent awareness level for the twenty in the United States. The campaign also set the stage for the introduction of the new $50 note in 2004 and $10 note in 2005. But there were also problems. According to Ross of the American Enterprise, the campaign did not accomplish a smooth transition: ‘‘Several major grocery store chains received notice of the new [bills] mere weeks before they appeared on the market. As a result, self-checkout lanes across the country were not prepared to accept the new bills when they were introduced to the market.’’
Ross was one of a number of people critical of spending tax dollars on a marketing campaign for the new $20 note. She stated, ‘‘the Secret Service reported that $44.3 million in counterfeit notes were passed last year—not much compared to the cost of the marketing and all the upgrades to ATMs and other machines we now need. Rather than redesigning, marketing, and incorporating a new $20, $50, or $100 bill into our lives once every few years, it would be much cheaper and more effective to simply spend more time finding and prosecuting counterfeiters.’’ Brandweek writer Philip Van Munching was even more caustic in his observations about the campaign, maintaining, ‘‘It isn’t so much that our government thinks its constituents are stupid people; it’s that the government is apparently comprised of stupid people, who naturally assume we’re their intellectual equals—I don’t question that the new $20 bills are different, but do we need to be sold on it?’’
For its work on ‘‘The New Color of Money’’ Burson-Marsteller received advertising industry accolades. In 2004 it won top honors for Global Campaign of the Year at the PRWeek Awards, present by PRWeek, a trade publication serving the public-relations field. Moreover, the new $20 bill itself was named one of the ‘‘Best Products of 2003’’ by BusinessWeek and Fortune magazines.

UP YOUR BUDGET CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
In 2005 Budget Rent A Car System, Inc., a key unit, with Avis, of the Cendant Car Rental Group, made its first foray into advertising on blogs (website digests typically maintained by one person or a small group of people). Blogs often focused on specific topics and thus attracted niche audiences, and they were known for their conversational tone and opinionated content. With a collective readership estimated at more than 30 million in 2005 and with extremely low advertising rates compared to TV, print, and traditional online placements, blogs represented an exciting, if relatively untested, opportunity for marketers. The Budget campaign, called ‘‘Up Your Budget,’’ ran in October and November 2005 and represented one of the most notable marketing uses of this new medium to that date.
At the center of ‘‘Up Your Budget’’ was a series of treasure hunts in 16 American cities that took place during the campaign’s four-week run. Information about the treasure hunts, each of which offered a cash prize of $10,000, was accessible only at the website www.upyourbudget.com, which took the form of a blog, and contest participants were enlisted in the further creation of the site’s content. The event was advertised with flash-animation cartoons placed on 177 of the most popular blogs of the time; those placements cost approximately $20,000 to run, bringing the campaign’s total budget to approximately $180,000. This amount was less than the cost of airing a single commercial on a top prime-time TV program. There was no off-line publicity of the event.
The campaign was well received within the realm of blogs (the so-called blogosphere), and www.upyourbudget. com drew more than 100,000 unique visitors over the four weeks that the contests ran. While the Budget campaign was believed to point the way toward the future of blog advertising, Cendant executives acknowledged the difficulty of judging whether a blog campaign was a marketing success or not, given the medium’s newness and its dissimilarity to traditional marketing channels. Nevertheless, Budget planned to continue its blog-centered marketing efforts.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Founded in 1958 as a car-rental agency targeting valueconscious travelers, Budget Rent A Car expanded rapidly over the next several decades. In the 1980s and 1990s the company changed hands twice, and in 2002 it was acquired by Cendant Corporation, a global group of companies concentrated in the travel and real-estate industries. Cendant also owned the car-rental company Avis, a key component, with Budget, of the Cendant Car Rental Group.
In the 1990s and 2000s the advertising industry found its primary communication models threatened by a convergence of trends that were reshaping consumers’ relationships to media outlets. Among the most noticeable of these trends was the increasing importance of the Internet to consumers’ business, personal, and social lives. The Internet both upset traditional notions of marketing and offered an abundance of new advertising possibilities. One promising new outlet for online advertising was the blogosphere, the collective world of online blogs. A blog (the word was short for Weblog) was a website typically created by one person or a small group of people as a forum for personal expression or discussion on a particular topic (e.g., U.S. politics, contemporary literature, or celebrity gossip), with frequently updated postings whose content was often derived from and/or linked to other websites. Because bloggers, as those who maintained blogs were called, were subject to few if any institutional restraints, blogs were often characterized by their opinionated and irreverent approach to topics treated more cautiously by the mainstream media. Blogs’ growing influence on American culture was initially felt most keenly in the realm of politics. A 2002 post on the blog Talking Points led the mainstream media to scrutinize racially problematic comments made by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott at a private party; the scrutiny eventually resulted in Lott’s resignation from the leadership post. For the 2004 U.S. presidential election, moreover, organizers of both major American parties blanketed political blogs with campaign advertisements, underscoring the wider marketing potential of the emerging media outlet. The interrelated system of links characteristic of blogs—bloggers typically offered links to their own favorite blogs, so that the most popular blogs could have hundreds of so-called ‘‘inbound’’ links—meant that the medium especially lent itself to viral marketing, or marketing that used social networks to spread messages in a way that recalled the spread of viruses. By the end of 2004 it was clear that blogs, though they were not individually organs of the mainstream media, had certainly arrived in the consciousness of mainstream America: dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster declared ‘‘blog’’ its ‘‘Word of the Year’’ for 2004 (based on the number of times it was looked up in its online database), and a study conducted in November 2004 by the Pew Internet & American Life Project predicted that, by the new year, more than 30 million Americans would be readers of blogs.

TARGET MARKET
‘‘Up Your Budget’’ attempted to lure a cross-section of the blog-reading populace to www.upyourbudget.com, itself a blog that served as the home base for the 16-city treasure hunt that was the campaign’s focal point. Ads directing blog readers to www.upyourbudget.com ran on 177 blogs, including blogs focused on new technology, celebrity gossip, media affairs, and life in specific urban centers. Though individual blogs had their own niche audiences, blogs in general tended to attract young, technology-savvy consumers, and Budget saw a blogfocused advertising campaign as a way of linking itself with attributes that might differentiate it in an industry not typically defined by fierce brand loyalty. ‘‘We really wanted to try something new and different for our brand,’’ the Cendant Car Rental Group’s executive vice president of marketing, Scott Deaver, explained to New Media Age (an ad-industry magazine focusing on new media). ‘‘We had heard about the power of viral marketing and wanted to see if this was a way to cut through the clutter and do something totally new.’’
The potential to imbue a brand with coolness via a blog-focused advertising campaign, however, did not come without substantial risk. Bloggers and blog readers could be a tough audience for the uninitiated. Not only were the proprietors of blogs themselves relatively uninhibited, but also blogs by definition solicited comments from readers. ‘‘It’s very easy to mess up because the space is very vocal,’’ Steve Hall of the advertising blog Adrants told New Media Age. ‘‘If you don’t blog, it’s very likely you’ll look stupid entering the space without an in-depth knowledge of it. Anyone interested in doing something in the space should work with a blogger.’’ Budget thus enlisted blogger, author, and consultant B.L. Ochman for the campaign. Ochman was responsible for selecting the blogs on which the ads appeared and, along with the Impax Marketing Group of Philadelphia, helping to craft the campaign’s overall strategy and content.

COMPETITION
With 30 percent of the market at the top 180 airports in the world, the Hertz Corporation was the leading carrental company by a wide margin as of 2004. Hertz was more expensive than most other car-rental companies, but it was also perceived as having superior services; during the late twentieth century, accordingly, it was the most popular rental-car brand among corporate travelers. Hertz advertising campaigns in the early 2000s, however, included efforts to appeal to those who traveled on behalf of small businesses and who tended to be more budget-conscious than their corporate counterparts. After becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Ford Motor Company in 2001, Hertz advertising often promoted Ford cars. An agreement extending this practice through 2010, under the terms of which Ford supplied half of Hertz’s advertising budget, was projected to continue even as Ford divested itself of its Hertz holdings in late 2005.
Beginning in 2002 car-rental companies moved increasingly large amounts of money into Internet advertising. This trend was especially evident among Budget’s most direct competitors, those companies catering to value-conscious consumers, such as Thrifty car rental, part of the Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group. In 2002 Thrifty directed 25 percent of its total $9.8 million budget to the Internet and increased that percentage substantially in the following year. ‘‘The [I]nternet caters at this point to the value shopper and our brands are very well suited to that,’’ Scott Anderson, Dollar Thrifty’s senior executive vice president for global marketing and franchising, told Advertising Age. Thrifty’s website experienced traffic increases that outpaced those of the other major brands in 2003.

MARKETING STRATEGY
The centerpiece of ‘‘Up Your Budget’’ was a series of treasure hunts held in 16 American cities—4 cities per week over the course of four weeks—between mid-October and mid-November 2005. The prize for individual winners in each city was $10,000, for a total prize package of $160,000. To win the prize contestants logged onto www.upyourbudget.com for daily clues and videos that helped them identify first the individual cities in question and then a location within each city where a yellow sticker had been placed. The first contestant in each city to find the sticker, call a toll-free number printed on it, and provide video or photographic proof of the discovery was the winner. There was also a treasure-hunters’ blog linked to the site, where participants could submit their own hints or ideas about the official clues as well as report on their experiences. In addition to the $160,000 in prizes, Budget spent approximately $20,000 on advertising placed solely on blogs. The advertisements, meant to drive traffic to www.upyourbudget.com, were simple flash-animated cartoons created by one of the world’s best-known bloggers, Hugh Macleod, whose own blog was called Gaping Void. The images were of semihuman figures making humorous gestures and faces, and they were paired with copy such as ‘‘The Adventure Begins etc. etc.’’ or ‘‘Hunt the Treasure . . . like it was a Wild Animal.’’ The exceedingly low price of advertising on blogs relative to TV, print, and mainstream online sites—
Budget’s total spending on the campaign was less than the cost of a 30-second spot on a highly rated prime-time TV show—made them attractive to marketers, but the medium’s capacity for effective brand communication was still largely speculative. Among the campaign’s more obvious goals of driving sales and building the Budget brand was that of measuring blogs’ capacity to rival traditional marketing. ‘‘I wanted to promote ‘Up Your Budget’ only through bloggers, advertise only on blogs and let it accelerate virally from there,’’ B.L. Ochman explained to New Media Age. ‘‘I wanted to prove that we could operate entirely without traditional media and still build brand awareness with a campaign that wasn’t overly commercial.’’ Budget did not even announce the campaign with an official press release. News of the campaign was first reported by blogs, including Adrants, Boing Boing, and MarketingVox.
One of the defining risks of viral marketing was the relinquishing of control over the brand’s message, and this was a new experience for Budget’s marketers. Scott Deaver told New Media Age, ‘‘To be asked to sit back and let the viral do its job was a complete leap of faith for us.’’ Not only was it impossible to control the specific nature of the messages being spread virally, but because of the uncensored nature of blogs, the brand also risked being linked to controversial content.

HOW MUCH DO THEY CHARGE?
Rates for ad space on blogs varied at the time that ‘‘Up Your Budget’’ ran. In general the rates depended not just on the number of readers a blog attracted but also on the degree to which specific target markets were drawn to particular blogs. For instance, a celebritygossip blog might have a daily readership of 200,000 or more but charge weekly prices for ad space of only a few hundred dollars because of the muddied demographics of its broad readership. A more tightly focused and lucrative target group, however, was worth much more to advertisers even if the blog’s readership was only 10,000. That said, the most popular of all blogs (as measured by the number of inbound links driving readers from other blogs to their sites) were generally also the most sought-after spaces for advertisers. The technology-focused Boing Boing, for instance, averaged 1.7 million readers monthly as of early 2006 and charged $8,000 a week for premium ad space.

OUTCOME
‘‘Up Your Budget’’ was well received in the blogosphere, generating hundreds of blog posts and more than 100,000 unique visits (Web visits made by users from different Web addresses, excluding repeat visitors and thereby giving a more accurate sense of audience size) to www.upyourbudget.com over the four weeks of the campaign. The blog pages on which ads for the treasure hunt appeared were viewed 19.9 million times, resulting in approximately 60,000 click-throughs to www.upyourbudget. com; this meant that in the field of blog advertising the campaign was one of the most successful at driving online traffic to an advertised site. Thousands of people signed up to participate in the contest and to create content for the Budget treasure-hunter’s blog, an unprecedented feat for a commercial blog to that date. Nevertheless, Deaver expressed ambivalence about the approach in an interview with the New York Times. ‘‘[T]he jury’s still out . . . I’d be lying if I said I know what to measure to determine success . . . the real determination is, what do we learn? Are we smarter when we do it next time?’’ At the conclusion of ‘‘Up Your Budget,’’ Budget announced that it would hold another such contest in 2006.