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One area where Burger King always has an edge over McDonald's is its uniquely weird commercials
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In particular, a series of ads in the mid-aughts featuring a perpetually smiling king
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that briefly pushed the fast food chain into the spotlight. Despite an initial explosion in sales and the king becoming so popular he starred in a trio of Xbox games
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Burger King couldn't deliver a dining experience that matched the fun of the character
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Today we're answering the question, why are Burger King's commercials better than their food
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It all began with a simple idea. Keith J. Kramer and Matthew Burns launched InstaBurger King in 1953
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Enter Jim McLemore and David Edgerton, two guys who were ready to take the burger world by storm
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In 1957, McLemore had a game-changing idea while eating a burger from a competing fast food joint
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Specifically, the burger was gigantic. He was inspired to offer a similarly huge sandwich to his own customers, which became The Whopper
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In 1959, it was purchased by its Miami, Florida franchisees, James McLemore and David R. Edgerton
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The first thing they did was shorten the chain's name to Burger King, eventually expanding to over 250 locations in the United States before selling it to the Pillsbury Company in 1967
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Burger King's first big marketing swing came in 1973 when they introduced a jingle called Have It Your Way In a world where McDonald was handily winning the fast food race BK needed to get magical Debuting in 1975 the marvelous magical Burger King
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was a Tudor-inspired monarch with a red beard who performed magic tricks
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The ads featured this bizarre king, along with the sidekick, Sir Shake-A-Lot
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Rounding out the trio was the Burger Thing, a giant puppet designed to look like a painting of a burger
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In late 1985, Burger King truly doubled down on the weird with the Where's Herb campaign
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A series of mysterious ads began airing in November, teasing a fictional character named Herb, portrayed by actor John Menick, who had never eaten a Whopper before
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Customers were encouraged to keep an eye out for Herb when they visited Burger King
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Burger King struggled to recover from the Herb debacle into the 1990s
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Reaching back for a little bit of that magic they'd found with the Marvelous King and his buddy Sir Shakealot
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they reintroduced the King with an updated look that seemed designed to outdo the previous design in pure strangeness
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The new character sported a shiny plastic mascot head and an off-putting smile
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sort of like a six-foot bobblehead doll sprung to life. in 2020 burger king revamped their approach with you rule the mascot who brought bk out of a slump
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to capture lightning in a bottle probably isn't coming back anytime soon although he could be
