Added: 12/22/2005 |
Subservient Chicken ad campaign created by the Cheeky ad agency is risky and smartCP+B hatched the ad industry's blockbuster hit of last year (a Web site, no less): Burger King's Subservient Chicken. Like about everything Crispin Porter + Bogusky does, the Subservient Chicken ad campaign is risky, but also very smart. It was the Subservient Chicken ad campaign that made the agency famous as the "cheeky ad agency".
To put it simply, the campaign involved a man, a dingy apartment, a chicken suit and a garter belt. The man hung out in front of his Webcam all day (at least that is the illusion) and happily implemented almost any request a user typed in. (Suggestions for dissolute acts were met with a "naughty" shake of the wing.)
As a result, more than three hundred and eighty five million hits were attracted. Visitors were spending an average of six minutes, asking the chicken to perform various stunts. For the perspective consider that a thirty-second spot on this year's Super Bowl broadcast went for a record of two point four million dollars a pop and reached an audience of one hundred and thirty three million.
The odd bird, created by the cheeky ad agency, is the result of the original, innovative, authentic, strategic and effective work. During the past decade, CP+B's billings exploded from forty five million dollars to over five hundred million dollars and counting. It was possible due to the groundbreaking work for such clients, as Ikea, BMW Mini and Virgin Atlantic. The client list of the cheeky ad agency has increased and now includes Burger King, Google, Gateway and Gap. It caused jealous talks on Madison Avenue about whether the agency can keep going on creating new effective brands.
"But how to do what they do?" That is the question everyone in the ad business is asking now. The Cheeky ad agency follows certain rules.
CP+B says its process begins with picking "inspiring" clients. From CP+B's perspective, Burger King doubled the agency's billings overnight to more than five hundred million dollars. It moved the agency further, to a new level of a high-stakes competition. On the other hand, Russ Klein, who was hired by Texas Pacific as Burger King's chief marketing officer (its eighth in nine years), said: "We brought CP+B in without a review, as we were, and still are, operating at a turnaround pace." The others said at the time that a radical campaign from CP+B was the company's last hope).
"At many agencies, a strategy restrains creativity. At CP+B, the disciplined thinking gives a license to work that can be extreme." A long-retired thirty-year-old slogan, "Have It Your Way," lies in the centre of CP+B's new marketing effort for Burger King. The agency dusted it off as a way to pitch customizable fast food to a mass audience of eighteen to thirty five year-old men. "Have It Your Way" is not a mere tagline, but it is a screening tool that, as much as possible, is used to guide every creative decision about the account.
There is a thought that ideas are an almost unhealthy obsession at Crispin Porter + Bogusky. "If you cannot come up with ideas, you will not survive here for long," says Bogusky, flashing a rare hint of intensity. Only people, who are true idea machines (in any discipline), find a welcome home within the agency's walls.
Subservient Chicken took off literally overnight. By the end of January, nine months after its release, the site had scored well over three hundred and eighty five million dollars hits and is still getting two hundred and fifty thousand to five hundred thousand hits per day.
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