From Klingons to Kingons – Star Trek and Burger King Team up for Promotion
May 6, 2009
Burger King is investing a lot of its marketing budget into blockbuster movie sponsorship this summer. According to The Wall Street Journal, Burger King will tie its products to Paramount Pictures’ Star Trek, Transformers 2 and G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. The 3-film partnership is new for both Burger King and Paramount Pictures, and it seems like a home run for Burger King.
Burger King has released one of the company’s new ads for Star Trek glasses, which will be available at Burger King locations soon. Certainly, both die-hard Trekkies and anyone who hasn’t lived under a rock for the past 30+ years, will recognize the parody of Star Trek Klingons appearing as Kingons in the new ad. It’s clever, and as much as the Burger King character freaks me out, this rendition does seem to work.
So often product placement seems haphazard and inappropriate resulting in a missed opportunity. I think the Burger King and Paramount parternship is a good one. It’s nice to see fast food restaurants tieing their brands to movies that don’t have a G rating. In other words, there does appear to be a place for fast food sponsorships in movies that aren’t cartoons (it worked for Burger King and Paramount for both the original Transformers movie and Iron Man). I suppose these movies are based on comics and cartoons, but the audience for these movies is not likely to be made up primarily of the preschool demographic.
What do you think? Is the Burger King-Star Trek partnership a good one?
Image: Flickr
This post was written by Susan Gunelius.
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I like the pairing and find the ads very clever. I never realized until now that the creepy King was already about 50% Klingon, he just needed a couple goose-eggs on his noggin and a more sinister wardrobe. I think Burger King has really worked hard over the past few years to differentiate itself from McDonalds and appeal to adults rather than kids. I hope they’re rewarded for their efforts, but still think their idea about “Whopperistas” customizing my burger, is a stretch.