Burger King and the cultural appropriation of a working class town

Burger King got rave reviews for its latest ad-campaign where it sponsored Stevenage FC in order to launch a challenge on FIFA. Hoping that the digital image of Sergio Ramos holding a cup above his head would grab attention, customers and headlines. Sports bible etc., predictably, loved it.

Under even the barest scrutiny it fell apart to reveal a clever ad-placing campaign dressed up in the cloths of rank gentrification – but the PR was brilliant.

The launch advert (a kind of fever dream of ‘urban imagery’, nonsensical poetry and obnoxious yet forgettable music) only got 20k views on YouTube when it launched in late 2019.

Nobody noticed it.

Burger King’s took Stevenage FC for £50,000 (or 0.017% of the US marketing budget) and changed their kit to look like a Burger King packet, handing them for free to angry fans. ‘Kits sold out for the first time ever’ we are told.

The advert patronises us by drawling ‘you haven’t heard of Stevenage Football Club… well nor had we’.

The same could have been said for the campaign until the PR. Now it has all the various blokey bibles raving about its genius.

Hats off to the spinners.