My favorite fast food franchise maybe making a, “Whopper” of a marketing mistake and I can’t figure out why they’re doing it.

Burger King had a marketing hit on its hands when in 2004 they reintroduced, “The King” as an incredibly spooky plastic faced character. The launch could not have been timed better. The new mono expressive King character is as popular as he is creepy and in 2004 the marketing world was well on its way to being entrenched in web 2.0 media sharing sites like the popular video site, You Tube.

People all over the world began making hysterical videos playing upon the creepy and the cool nature of the King character from having him appear at sleeping children’s bedsides to applying tanning oil to scantily clad women on the beach. King videos and doctored images were popping up everywhere and Burger King Restaurants were reaping the rewards of this viral marketing.

The new king was proving to be the best marketing decision BK had ever made. They finally had a mascot that could compete and even beat that friggin clown at,” arch” rival McDonalds.

None of the pervious BK mascots have had anywhere near the acceptance or charisma of the new King. In actuality they were all pretty forgettable. In the early 70’s, when I was a kid, the King was a cartoon character that really had no pizzazz. In the late 70’s the King became a real man. He was magical and performed tricks at Burger Kings all over the country. This new live king was a marketing flop. Grown men with onion ring breath and scraggly red beards just didn’t appeal to little kids – go figure.

Burger King was not the only fast food chain to struggle with creepy marketing mascots. McDonalds introduced their first mascot in 1963. Former Bozo the Clown actor and now famous weatherman Willard Scott portrayed the very first Mickey D’s clown. As a weatherman Scott is lovable and kind, especially to century year old women around the country who get a shout-out on their birthdays from the jolly weatherman but as a fast food clown though he hit the disturbing scale on a level that would only be topped by John Wayne Gacy.

We’ll now that BK seems to have a winning mascot on their hands they may be fazing him out to be replaced with the 70’s cartoon King. To make matters worse they seem to be using both Kings at the same time.

On a recent visit to a Burger King in Connecticut I noticed that the old King was appearing on Kids Meal bags while at the same time the current King was on signage around the restaurant. What is the point of this? From a marketing perspective it seems counter-productive. You’ve got a King that is a viral marketing phenom. Hordes of people are marketing for you – why screw with that, especially to return to such an insignificant character?

I wonder if all this viral marketing is gong un-noticed by the franchise or is it just another case of an ad agency not understanding the power and potential of the new Internet culture. Well Burger King, if you want to throw away a good thing – have it your way.

This post written from Starbucks in Marlboro NJ 

Do you know what all the web 2.0 hubbub is about? If you said no then you’re not alone. Most businesses have no clue what web 2.0 is, for that matter neither do marketers. 79% of marketers are not familiar with web 2.0 and of the ones that are, only 33% use web 2.0 strategies.

Web 2.0 is fast becoming the most over used and misused term on the web. 

I’ve heard web 2.0 described as an evolution, design style, application and I’ve even read an article calling it a revolution. A revolution!? Are we all going to be throwing our laptops into Boston Harbor?

Let’s see if we can set the record straight. Web 2.0 is a “marketing term” it does not signify a second coming of the web. If anything, the web is in its fourth or fifth coming. We started with basic communication when the Internet was the ARPANET (web 1.0) then we went to chatting and bulletin board type communication prior to the first web browser (web 2.0). In 1995 Netscape went public and the web became mainstream as people began building both personal and commercial websites (web 3.0). Shortly thereafter Amazon went public (1997) and kicked off“e-commerce” (web 4.0). So easily we are looking at web 5.0 today.

No matter what iteration we are entering into the fact remains that web 2.0 is a dominant phrase that marketers, web developers, businesses and connected customers are using and misusing. Let’s run down some of the medium that is being dubbed web 2.0 and get to the bottom of this once and for all.

User generated content is often said to be a web 2.0 staple however sites like Amazon and eBay have been using content generated by its users for years. eBay feedback and Amazon customer reviews are and have been critical elements for both sites almost since their inception. Nothing new here.

Blogs are considered web 2.0 because they are timely and utilize user generated content. Blogs have also been around for many years as “web-logs” but only recently have they reached mainstream acceptance. Again, nothing new here either.

Podcasts Are audio and video files on the web – next!

Wiki. A wiki is a website that allows content collaboration through a web browser to anyone that has been granted access to it. The best known wiki is Wikipedia. The first wiki was created in 1995! On with the run down.

Widgets are one of my favorite so called web 2.0 thingy that businesses are rushing to create so they can be seen as “cutting edge”.  A widget is an interactive tool that you download and it sits on your desktop (or a website) feeding you up to the minute information about practically anything you want. These widgets gather information from the Internet and display this info to you without you having to go and get it.

Widgets are cool little gizmos however they are not widely used as intended and they are far from new, Apple has been using them in their operating systems for years and Microsoft integrated them with the web using “active desktop” featured in the release of their Internet Explorer 4 web browser.

The reason they have not been widely  accepted by users on their desktops is that PC stands for “personal computer” and that is why people put pictures of their family, pets (penthouse or animal), cars, boats or just about anything that they want to stare at day in and day out. Widgets cover that coveted space which is why we all don’t have tons of little gizmos on our desktop.

Web 2.0 Design is among my favorite of the misused terms out there. They are designers, agencies and web developers that are touting the fact that they will design using web 2.0 elements such as glass buttons, rounded corners and reflections.  Web 2.0 is not a design style. I’ll say this again. Web 2.0 is not a design style. Rounded corners and reflections have been used by Apple for years. I personally like the look however it’s soooo 15 minutes ago. Everyone is using this style and it’s now lost its appeal. Designs and marketing companies are telling clients to do this to be different but they just end up different like everyone else.

Dynamic websites are starting to pop up all over the place. Sites using programming languages like AJAX to allow a websites users to move components around, integrate feeds and manipulate content are becoming commonplace. Sites like iGoogle that allow a user to create a page that they want by integrating anything they want wherever they want seem to be appealing the web 2.0 programmers out there. Whether the site needs to have that level of customization or not it is being built in because everyone wants to develop in a web 2.0 manner. Again nothing new here. I think Burger King invented the “Have it your way” thing.

Sometimes you can give people too many choices and end up having a negative outcome. So all this being said web 2.0 is more of a movement than anything else.

Think of web 2.0 as a mindset that will lead to a more fluid interaction between websites and connected customers. Web 2.0 is more a way of thinking than a technological advance. Building things from the bottom up as opposed to the top down to give the customers what they want and need is what web 2.0 is about.

When web 2.0 is positioned as a mindset to enhance customer interaction and satisfaction I’m all for it. Unfortunately the only thing I could find that was new about web 2.0 is having businesses and marketers that now think about the customers needs first.