The Future of Ads

Burger King is trying to become a lifestyle brand with the Burger King Studio, and surprisingly, they’re doing a pretty good job at it.

Don’t let the name fool you. This isn’t some sort of Web 2.0 trick to make you feel like you’re part of an exclusive club. No, the Burger King Studio is an actual studio space in Chicago, as well as an online arm that allows them to share the work of the studio with the world.

According to Burger King, the Studio is Part art gallery, part think-tank with a dash of mad scientist’s experiments thrown in for good measure.

From customizable t-shirts and merchandise to one of a kind events, Burger King Studio is all about the things that are “uniquely you”.

Included in the Studio is a blog, which talks about the work of their ‘cutting edge artists and designers’, a gallery, which allows BK to feature the work of their artists, an artists section that features profiles of their artists, and a store, which allows you to buy the work of their artists, or create your own one of a kind, hand-screened t-shirt.

The t-shirt creator is the easily the highlight of the site. Users can add up to six design elements, then play with them, tweak them, change them and color them, and when the masterpiece is perfect, submit an order that is then hand-screened by the Studio team in Chicago.

With ambitious projects like this, it’s easy for companies to over-brand and over-market as they try too hard to sell. However, Burger King was smart and kept branding to a minimum. They knew that if they over-branded a site that was trying to cater to the lifestyle community, they would drive their desired users away in droves. Instead, one of the only links to the brand is the BK crown that sits atop the words “Burger King” through out the site, and their traditional logo that sits below the fold and hidden away in the footer.

Of course the t-shirt creator contains various items that are associated with the Burger King brand, such as the King, “my way”, the crown, and the logo, but these items aren’t the focus of the creator, and they dirty them up a bit to help them fit in with the rest of the look and feel.

By acknowledging the fact that their target market is smart enough to know when they’re being sold to, Burger King can brand in a subtle yet effective way without ruining the authenticity of the site, and you as a user can understand that the Studio is a Burger King property, but you can also ignore that fact and use the site anyways because it’s just so damn cool.

The Good:

• Lightly branded site is perfect for the lifestyle community.
• Offers a ton of added value to the user.
• Seamlessly combines both an offline and online environment.
• Creates a product that people want to wear, allowing them to represent and spread the brand.

The Bad:

• Limited target market.
• Potential difficulty with sustaining authenticity.

The Future:

• Lifestyle campaigns allow brands to be ‘cool’, while providing value to their customer, and taking offline branding online and vice versa.

Burger King Studio

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