Eat at CreepyBurger!

Miami ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky has produced a series of television ads — or, rather, mini-campaigns — for Burger King which are inventive, yes, odd, yes, attention-grabbing, yes— but do they really sell burgers?

I have no doubt that the surrealistic spots will delight ad-competition judges who enjoy "pushing the envelope", and will garner the agency a shelf or two of ersatz gold figurines and laser-etched acrylic obelisks.

But — attention-grabbing aside — I have doubts that these spots will make people hungry.

To put it succinctly, these are some of the creepiest TV ads I've ever seen or heard.

For example, the latest spot... One in which we see a barking dog clawing at the inside of the front door of a suburban home. . . . Something's out there.

The man of the house opens the door and sees nothing. Silence. He turns his head to look at his pooch, as if to ask him, "Did I accidentally drop my meds in your dish this morning?" . . . This is when they always strike: when you turn away.

The man turns back to look at the front yard. There, standing in the distance, is "The King" (no, not Elvis, although he'd certainly be a welcome addition to the campaign, regardless of his state of decay).

Cut to another look-away take, and back again— and The King, hands behind his back, has soundlessly teleported to the doorstep, right in front of the man. The King is a huge, fiberglass-and-brocade rendition of the Burger King mascot... a fat, head-lopping Hizmajesty imported from a dadaesque stage production of Alice in Wonderland designed by X-popping Tutonic dramatists... a frozen-faced avatar for a corporatized, globalized feed trough, wearing a shield of feigned joy like a Romulan Bird of Prey. . . . Run while you still can!!

The man shows no reaction to this lost-time incident — apparently because he has been experiencing alien abductions for the last decade or so.

We're now looking osho (over-the-shoulder) from behind The King... and the Monarch of Madness pulls a burger box from behind him (where he was keeping it I dare not ask), and presents it to the man, who displays the look of a toddler who has just awakened from a nap. [Edit: Okay, so maybe I combined two of the spots in my head. It's all just one big creepy campaign.] . . . They get you when you're sleeping.

Cue the Voice Over. It's grating. It's gravelly. It's highly-affected and highly-modulated for the sake of being "sing-song"... But the effect is that of a poor-man's Huggy Bear from the original "Starsky and Hutch". Or a Miles Davis wannabe, without a trumpet. Or maybe, more accurately, a serial killer calling to taunt his next victim... in this case using his powers of suggestion to brainwash the hapless burger consumer into involuntarily forking over hard-earned cash for over-hyped, over-cooked, transfat-riddled food. It's Freddy Krueger starring in a remake of "The Manchurian Candidate". . . . Don't answer the phone.

"Neeewwwww..."

The VO describes the manufactured foodstuff [is it coincidence that the ad agency calls itself "the factory"?], and the product-shot B-roll lumbers on. The food stylists could make a bowling ball with a 30-weight motor oil topping look appetizing. . . . "Come to me... Come into the light..."

When The King and The Jazz Pimp Serial Killer feel you losing your will to resist, The Killer speaks for The King in a chilling moment of corporate confidence, The Killer's voice rising and falling like a distant nuclear attack siren, pushing each victim over the edge, reassuring each listener with jagged softness that Gluttony is Good, that Evil Is The Way:

"Thaaaat's riiiiight..."

Chills run down this viewer's spine.

The VO Jazz Pimp Serial Killer uses his voice like a tool from some military war room — a sinister shuffleboard cue — to pushhhhh the viewer like an obedient, expendable, naked soldier down a sine-wave razor blade into a pool of year-old mustard sauce below. . . . See? We told you they'd get you.

. . .

Unsettling and surreal may work for a garage band or a cutting-edge fragrance or negative politicals, but does it make you feel good about the people who are making the food that you put into your mouth... into your body?

Or is the problem that younger consumers now associate food with unsettling, surreal surroundings? Family dinner time is all but relegated to books on ancient anthropology, and kids eat more and more meals away from home.

Perhaps Burger King and Alex Bogusky ("the agency's 41-year-old creative wunderkind," as FastCompany called him), have discovered that the young consumer is more at home on the street, more settled with commercialism than with family, more at home living in unsettled circumstances than living in his own home. Maybe food is more positively associated with chaos and the unknown than with loving, caring parents. I don't know. I haven't seen the psych profile for BK's demos.

Maybe this is cp+b's way of differentiating their client. A way to grab eyeballs and make the client memorable in today's constant barrage of advertising... with all other considerations taking a back seat (as in, "Move to the back of the bus.").

Or maybe Alex Bogusky's just a tad wiggy, and the execs at Burger King are Blinded by the Light of Creativity.

Having said that, I have to confirm that I'm "a creative", too. I provide graphic design, web design, copy, and branding to various kinds of clients. I do voice over. And I paint. So I know the creative psyche. We're different. We have to be. Divergence is where new ideas come from. I dig free association and the rapid-fire give-and-take of a creative session. I dig deadlines and having to use my design and writing skills like a member of an improv troupe working a hot room. It produces amazing "endolphins".

Creation is my drug of choice... and all of us creatives could easily be considered "a tad wiggy" by "the straights."

But I still like to feel comfortable about my food... I want to not feel as though, once swallowed, that food will morph into an alien-built control device that will take over my mind and body and make me do things. Bad things. Things Mommy would spank me for.

So while they may be "making their numbers" as a fallen executive has said... I'm taking a break from eating at Burger King.

. . . Take a Soma Holiday!