Burger King Whopper-splains net neutrality’s repeal in new ad

Trying to explain to people why the repeal of net neutrality is an important issue is like trying to force-feed brussels sprouts to a toddler. So Burger King has opted to wrap the matter into a Whopper.

On Wednesday, Burger King debuted a new ad that aims to educate people about net neutrality by translating it into terms anyone can understand: Do you want to pay extra to get your food on time? No? Well, what about the internet?

In the ad (embedded below), Burger King shows customers — which it claims are “actual guests” — made to wait longer than usual to receive their Whoppers because they declined to pay a higher price for a faster turnaround.

The skit is a comical stand-in for the issue of net neutrality rules, which were repealed by the Federal Communications Commission last month and whose repeal enables internet service providers to charge people additional fees to receive data over the internet, such as The New York Times’s website, videos on Netflix or email messages on Gmail. In the skit, Burger King stands in for the internet service providers and the Whopper for the internet data.

Burger King’s hope with the campaign is that, if it can show how hangry people get about being taxed for their Whoppers, it can incite a similar rage about the possibility of being tolled for their internet and prompt them to sign a petition for the FCC to reverse course on the repeal it has already voted to enact or for Congress to pass a bill overriding the repeal.

“We believe the internet should be like BURGER KING® restaurants, a place that doesn’t prioritize and welcomes everyone. That is why we created this experiment, to call attention to the potential effects of net neutrality,” Burger King global CMO Fernando Machado said in a statement.

About The Author

Tim Peterson

Tim Peterson, Third Door Media’s Social Media Reporter, has been covering the digital marketing industry since 2011. He has reported for Advertising Age, Adweek and Direct Marketing News. A born-and-raised Angeleno who graduated from New York University, he currently lives in Los Angeles. He has broken stories on Snapchat’s ad plans, Hulu founding CEO Jason Kilar’s attempt to take on YouTube and the assemblage of Amazon’s ad-tech stack; analyzed YouTube’s programming strategy, Facebook’s ad-tech ambitions and ad blocking’s rise; and documented digital video’s biggest annual event VidCon, BuzzFeed’s branded video production process and Snapchat Discover’s ad load six months after launch. He has also developed tools to monitor brands’ early adoption of live-streaming apps, compare Yahoo’s and Google’s search designs and examine the NFL’s YouTube and Facebook video strategies.