Burger King Trolls McDonald's Again With Ads for Clown-Free Birthdays

Burger King is back on the anti-clown crusade.

Two years after giving anyone dressed as a clown a free Whopper on Halloween, BK and LOLA MullenLowe have unveiled an out-of-home campaign featuring kids squealing in terror while being held by clowns at their birthday party. 

“Birthdays should be happy,” says the headline on each. 

The ads go on to suggest having your child’s birthday at BK, rather than at a place whose mascot, famously, is a clown. See the ads here: 

“Burger King knows that birthdays are a very big deal for kids and we believe they should be fun and clown-free,” says Marcelo Pascoa, head of global marketing at Burger King. “We prefer to be on the good side of children’s memories, not the scary ones, like the traumatized kids in these ads.” 

BK has recommended clown-free experiences many times before. In one notable execution, they added the line “The moral is: Never trust a clown,” along with the BK logo, to the end credits of the horror movie IT. 

CREDITS

Agency: LOLA MullenLowe
Campaign: Birthday Clowns
Client: Burger King
Client Contact: Fernando Machado, Marcelo Pascoa, Rogelio Magaña
Chief Creative Officer: Chacho Puebla
Director Creativo Ejecutivo: Tomás Ostiglia, Pancho Cassis
Director Creativo: André Toledo, Saulo Rocha
Head of Art: Fabio Brigido
Head of Innovation: Fred Bosch
Copywriter: Luis Giraldo
Art Director: Felipe Antonioli
Managing Director: Tom Elliston
Global Account Director: Carlos Solchaga
Account Supervisor: Adriana Gonzalez Cid
Strategic Planner: Marcelle Santos
Agency Producer: Felipe Calviño, Diego Baltazar
Head of Communications: Sarah Okrent
Photographer: Ale Burset