When I wrote my scathing response to the Whopper Virgins campaign as perpetrated by Burger King over on Ad Age’s Global Idea Network, Ian Lurie responded with Whopper Virgins: Not Appalling. Not Brilliant, Either.

Whopper Virgins: Not Appalling. Not Brilliant, Either

Chris Abraham over at Marketing Conversations wrote an thoughtful critique of Burger King’s new Whopper Virgins campaign.

I appreciate Chris’s opinion: The video is at times jingoistic and, frankly, a little embarrassing if you’re an American. Burger King went out of their way to find people in local clothing minutes from major urban centers in Europe. How exactly did they do that? Much of the video is just more ugly Americans pointing and giggling at the rest of the world.

I also see Burger King’s thinking: This is a great viral piece. The effort alone – flying a broiler all around the world to cook burgers, for gosh sakes – is worthy of a documentary.

So, is the Whopper Virgins campaign ‘good’ marketing? Marketing should:

• Help the target audience make informed decisions about products. Nothing about this video does that. Nothing tells me why I’d want a Whopper.
• It should not make the target brand look foolish. Burger King ends up looking (in my opinion) a tad silly. They spent who-knows-how-much money to shoot this. Could they have better spent the money on other aspects of marketing? Or on their product? Also, “Whopper Virgins? Are you kidding me?
• Make me want the product. This video utterly fails to do that. Granted, I’m a classic middle-class liberal. So I have no sense of humor. But I’m also an avid fast food consumer. This video makes me want Wendy’s.
• Take risks. Good marketers take chances now and then. Nothing wrong with that. And this video clearly takes a gamble.
• It should generate buzz. It’s certainly done that, with headlines like “Socially Awkward” and “Just Bad Taste?”.

I don’t think this video deserves the controversy it’s generated. You could interpret it as offensive. But would you consider it as offensive if the video had been done by National Geographic? Probably not.

But it’s not good marketing, either. It’s an art project: A huge investment of dollars in something that probably won’t pay off, in spite of the kerfuffle right now.

How many burgers do you have to sell to pay for that rental helicopter, I wonder?

“Although a large body of research does show that people become happier as they move from being very poor to lower middle class, after this point the impact of income on happiness is much weaker. Think of someone who makes $100,000 one year and $110,000 the next—do we really expect this additional income to suddenly make this person fulfilled, without a care in the world? (You can also think about whether such changes in your own income really make you happier with your life on a day-to-day basis: Being informed about a raise certainly makes us happy, but the $10,000 doesn’t make our siblings or in-laws any less difficult to deal with over the course of the following year. …) Although people believe that having money leads to happiness, our research suggests that this is only the case if at least some of that money is given to others.” Via HBS

I feel like money can’t buy you love; however, in the United States, where everything is dependent on cash-in-hand, money does buy you rest, calm, security, and health. In my new home, Berlin, money isn’t a number-one priority because there are social services — a safety net — that takes that baseline level of “what would I do if I lost my insurance/home/car/job feeling that constantly is renting space in all of our heads. Sadly, in America, money is all there is. Cash is the only currency. Social programs are under-funded, neglected, and shameful to actually use.  We’re in a country that considers any sort of public funding, subsidies, or support to be part and parcel of a “nanny state,” considered to be a bad thing in this land of the rugged, boot-strapped, self-made, capitalistic, individualist.  So, while money can’t buy me love, it can get me married, can subsidize a family, education, insurance, vacations, time off, rest, travel, schools, colleges, cars, medical care, unforeseen expenses, and the kinds of safety next that only money can buy.

Poll: How Much Do You Need to Live Comfortably?