Burger King’s Eric Foo speaks about being irreverent and fun

The ‘Super seven incher’ print ad released by Burger King in mid 2009 in Singapore attracted a flurry of attention for the fast food restaurant. While some advertising professionals and bloggers criticised the ad for sexual innuendos, the fast food chain's Singapore GM, Eric Foo (pictured) believes it reflects every bit of Burger King’s corporate culture of being 'irreverent and fun'.

“We have always strived to be tongue-in-cheek and naughty. This has enabled us to stand out and connect us with our consumer,” says Foo.

Since taking over the franchises in April this year, Burger King has steadily devised marketing campaigns to deliver its brand promise to its customers.

“In the fast food restaurant business, it is no longer just the ‘share of the stomach’ that we must consider, it is instead ‘share of the wallet’,” believes Foo. “We have therefore positioned ourselves as affordable meal restaurant where ‘you can have it your way’, enabling our customers to create meals the way they want,” says Foo.

Burger King has taken an innovative, tongue-in-cheek, and somewhat radical approach to introduce advertising campaigns, including the 'Angry Whopper' hoax in April this year, the 'Wallet drop' campaign and the bingo-inspired with 'Rebel the Octopuppy' communication.

“Each of our campaigns has given us different perspectives of Singapore and the unsuspecting Singaporeans,” informs Foo. “To launch the ‘Wallet drop’ campaign, we had to consider unlawful littering, but at the same time, it brought us face-to-face with honesty of Singaporeans where 100 per cent of our ‘targets’ returned the wallet to the ‘talent’,” says Foo.

“But in all our approaches, ground activation has been the real cream on the cake. It has significantly stood out and brought us in close contact with our customers.”

Asked what Burger King is concocting next as its marketing campaign, Foo said, “We have developed an ability to laugh at ourselves and hopefully made a few people laugh along. If there is one promise I can make, it is not to let our customers down and continue creating new and memorable experiences.”