Burger King is celebrating the 55th anniversary of its Whopper hamburger with a whopper of a deal:

"Hurry in to any participating BURGER KING® restaurant nationwide from December 6th through December 9th, to enjoy an Original WHOPPER® Sandwich for just 55 cents, when you purchase any WHOPPER® Sandwich, including the new Wisconsin White Cheddar WHOPPER® or the spicy ANGRY WHOPPER®, available for a limited-time-only."

Also new to the menu for the iconic sandwich's 55th, which is being sold with retro packaging? Seasoned sweet potato cury fries. The fast food brand, which is testing home delivery, is inviting fans to submit their own Whopper moments on Facebook, as you can see in its new TV campaign below:Continue reading...

Mary J. Blige had a dream when she was a kid. It wasn’t too outrageous or impossible to reach. All she wanted to do was be in a commercial for McDonald’s or Burger King. Well, she can scratch it off her list now and try to figure out how the whole became such a nightmare.

When Blige’s commercial for Burger King — part of BK's just-wrapped celebrity campaign for its new menu — came out in April, some attacked the spot touting crispy chicken snack wraps as stereotyping the African American performer. Wrap up all that anger and confusion into a slew of social-media outpouring and you’ had some pretty bad PR for Blige, while BK quickly squelched the affair by pulling the commercial.

It was also an object lesson in the pitfalls of celebrity endorsements. For Blige's part, she’s finally opening up about her side of the PR failure and has apologized to anyone who was offended.Continue reading...

Many more Chinese consumers are about to be able to have it their way, as Burger King has announced an "accelerated" expansion in China, planning 1,000 new locations via a new joint venture in the next five to seven years.

Some are wondering if The King might not be offering too little, too late. The question should be, what way, exactly, do the Chinese want it?Continue reading...

Burger King today unveiled the post-celebrity kick-off to its summer campaign: "Barbecue Day." The description: "Summer time is all about great food, good company and fun! This is the time of year we all look forward to. It’s BBQ time friends! Let’s have a BBQ today at BURGER KING®!" 

Click here to watch its new commercial, and take a look back at its (somewhat) controversial, just-wrapped celebrity-studded campaign for its new menu below.Continue reading...

TD takes top spot on Interbrand's new Best Canadian Brands ranking.

JCPenney continues claw-back of new business model, plans to use term "sale" again.

Sara Lee renames North American business Hillshire Brands and narrows focus to meat.

Apple uses more celebrities in marketing; what does that say about new products?

Justin Bieber debuts another fragrance concept called Girlfriend.

Burger King expands in Russia.

Clear Channel shifts royalty deal for music artists including Taylor Swift's label.Continue reading...

The King is dead. Scratch that: he's back. Long live the King! Regardless of whether Burger King re-gains a long-term lead over Wendy's as the No. 2 U.S. burger chain — both of them trail McDonald's by a mile — the short-term renaissance of the brand has made things interesting in a QSR business that has lacked excitement lately.

Burger King correctly called that involving celebrities in its marketing would create buzz, visibility and interest. So in new ads running over the last few weeks, BK fans and non-fans alike have been intrigued to see familiar faces including Mary J. Blige and David Beckham, Sofia Vergara and Salma Hayek, even Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, shilling for the King.

The fast food chain says it will discontinue the celebrity-studded campaign promoting its new menu this summer. But in the meantime, it has helped create enough interest that Burger King's same-store sales have posted solid gains, while Wendy's have dropped off again, on a relative basis. Burger King once again, at least for a while, has usurped the "Avis" position that it gave up to Wendy's last year.Continue reading...

The coming Summer Olympics are promising to be the most digital sporting event of all time. NBC is planning to stream gobs of events and is not afraid that doing so will bastardize the prime-time coverage that the average viewer seeks. That way, a table-tennis aficionado can catch every last move that the Warren Buffett-sponsored American teen prodigy Ariel Hsing makes while the general public can just marvel at her greatest hits.

The digital Olympics onslaught got a serious boost this week when Olympic partner Samsung released an awesome online-only advertisement featuring David Beckham, one of the brand's Team Samsung London 2012 ambassadors. In it, the soccer star promotes the Galaxy Note by sounding out Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” by kicking balls at a wall of drums. The word was spread about the ad using Beckham’s own Facebook page as well as other online touch points. Since the video went live on Monday, it's racked up more than 1M views.Continue reading...

Earlier this year, Wendy's dethroned Burger King to become America's second-largest burger chain, based on the chains' 2011 U.S. sales figures, for the first time. But the pinnacle (well, sub-pinnacle, as both are way beneath McDonald's) must be slippery, because Wendy's foothold at the top already appears to be weakening.

For Wendy's, the first quarter was a big disappointment and produced only a 2-percent revenue increase compared with a year ago, to $593 million, forcing the chain to lower its 2012 outlook. But for the ever-hungry Burger King, first-quarter sales rose by more than 3 percent, to $570 million.

Both burger icons tried some tweaks that were new and different during the period. Burger King's innovations seem to be working out better for now.Continue reading...