Burger King caught people in food comas after they ate its biggest sandwiches

In Mexico and other Latin countries, siestas, or mid-day naps, are a common tradition. The combination of warm climate and heavy meal are the perfect recipe for sending a person into slumber. While this ritual usually takes place at home, or perhaps at a nearby park, you wouldn’t expect it to happen in the middle of a busy fast food restaurant like Burger King. But that’s what one of the restaurant’s managers in Mexico City noticed with some of her customers. After they finished their meals, which she said usually consisted of the sizable sandwiches in Burger King’s “King’s Collection,” she’d notice them dozing off, right in the middle of the restaurant. The bigger the burger, the more she’d catch them catching their z’s. During a chat with Gustavo Lauria, co-founder of one of BK’s agencies We Believers, she mentioned her observation, which then sparked an entire campaign centered on BK’s post-prandial snoozers. The new series of print ads catches BK eaters in total food coma. The heroes are serene, slumped over figures of stillness in the center of a bustling world, burger wrappers splayed out before them alongside scatterings of leftover fries. Copy over each individual reads “They’re that big,” promoting BK Mexico’s King’s Collection, consisting of the restaurant’s biggest burgers. In the corner of each ad, there’s additional information: a date, time and restaurant location—because, according to Lauria, the shots are all genuine. After hearing the manager’s observation, his agency hired a photography to stake out BK restaurants in Mexico City for an entire month to capture the dynamic in action. “As soon as they woke up, the photographer approached them to tell them about the project and offer them to sign [a release]—the same thing you usually do when you capture people with a hidden camera for a case study,” he says. While the campaign is for the Mexico market, Lauria says it may travel to others. To make sure BK was covered, “we paid [the sleeping customers] for global rights, so now any market has the opportunity to use the pictures.”

Burger King caught people in food comas after they ate its biggest sandwiches

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