At what lengths will an agency go to spend a clients hard earned money. If you are Crispin Porter + Bogusky, to Greenland, Thailand and other far away places to make a spot called “Whopper Virgins.” The concept is brilliant- do the ultimate blind taste test, find people who’ve never eaten a hamburger, and may not even know the difference between McDonalds and Burger King.
So far so good. But then after a very expensive shoot, and a brilliant, entertaining short documentary, you fail to let the world find the site online as discussed in Ad Age:
…Whopper Virgins, its latest endeavor, may be the best yet… if you can find it.
The Whopper Virgins experience begins with a TV commercial with a brief teaser that directs you to WhopperVirgins.com. … it’s running heavily during weekend football games. Go to the site and you’re treated to a video of Burger King running a Whopper vs. Big Mac taste test with people in Romania, Thailand and Greenland who have never eaten a hamburger before. It’s poignant and amusing, if you can tolerate the implicit ethnocentrism.
What if you don’t remember the exact Web address and Google it? You still better remember the domain name. While whopperVirgins.com ranks first in Google for “whopper virgins,” it’s invisible when you omit the plural.
There are three areas of neglect here:
* The domain: WhopperVirgin.com is a parked domain filled with ads for Burger King store listings, Virgin Mobile gifts, Virgin Atlantic flights, Virgin Islands vacations and Virgin Mary checks.
* Search engine optimization: The microsite doesn’t appear on the first three pages of Google results for “whopper virgin” searches.
* Paid search: While reviewing Google’s listings over several days, there hasn’t been a search ad running on “whopper virgin” queries.
This is a major missed opportunity. Google Trends shows that recently, the volume of searches for the singular and plural versions have been nearly equal. “Whopper virgin” searchers must either go to an intermediary site or refine their search. Why can’t consumers ‘have it their way’ and get to Burger King’s site even if they’re off by a letter? This multimillion-dollar branding campaign could have covered all its bases with a $10,000 search marketing investment. As it stands now, Burger King risks frustrating consumers instead of serving up one whopper of a video.
Burger King’s Whopper of a Virginal Search Slip-up - Advertising Age - DigitalNext.
We’ve been preaching the same thing, ever since Crispin did the expensive “Manthem” spot. In fact, most ad agency sites are just as oblivious to both search and accessibility. Both of which should be critical to any client and their budget.
Before you approve a large web budget, you should first, try to google your agency. Go to www.google.com and type in: site:youragencyurl.tld like site:thenextwave.biz
If they don’t have more total results than we do, start wondering (especially if there are more than 2 commas in your budget). We’re happy to evaluate digital strategy for any one who is about to spend a gazillion dollars on an online based campaign like Whopper Virgins.
In case you want to see it- try it right here, instead of going to the site that does nothing for search.
http://www.whoppervirgins.com/
update- 2017- here’s the video from the flash site