Burger King Aggressively Mocks McDonald's With Scary Clown Ads

Burger King is launching a new ad campaign to scare parents away from hosting birthday parties at [...]

By Daniel S. Levine

Burger King is launching a new ad campaign to scare parents away from hosting birthday parties at McDonald's with horrifying posters featuring scary clowns.

The trio of ads were released last week and include the slogan, "Birthdays should be happy. Come to Burger King and book a clown-free party." Each print ad shows a child in tears while sitting on a scary clown's lap, reminding viewers of the Ronald McDonald clown mascot McDonald's is famous for.

The ad campaign was created by Spanish agency LOLA Mullenlowe.

"Burger King knows that birthdays are a very big deal for kids and we believe they should be fun and clown-free. We prefer to be on the good side of children's memories not the scary ones, like the traumatized kids in these ads," Marcelo Pascoa, Head of Global Marketing for Burger King, said in a statement.

The ad is just the latest one from Burger King to specifically target its main rival. Last week, Burger King announced "Real Meals" for Mental Health Awareness Month, taking a jab at McDonald's Happy Meals. The new meals include Salty Meal, YAAS Meal, DGAF Meal, Pissed Meal and Blue Meal.

"With the Real Meals campaign, the Burger King brand believes in authenticity and welcomes all guests," the company said in a press release. "A natural extension of encouraging people to 'be their way' is encouraging them to 'feel their way.' With the pervasive nature of social media, there is so much pressure to appear happy and perfect. With Real Meals, the Burger King brand celebrates being yourself and feeling however you want to feel."

The meals were created with the help of Mental Health America, a non-profit dedicated to helping those with mental illness and promoting mental health throughout the U.S. They will only be available at Burger Kinds in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Seattle and Austin, Texas.

Burger King also made headlines when the company announced it will have the Impossible Burger at every location by the end of the year. It was first made available at 58 St. Louis locations in April.

The Impossible Whopper will be made using the vegetarian burger instead of the traditional beef patty.

The produced will "give somebody who wants to eat a burger every day, but doesn't necessarily want to eat beef everyday, permission to come into the restaurants more frequently," Chris Finazzo, president of Burger King North America, told CNN Business last month.

Photo credit: NurPhoto/Getty Images

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