The Subservient Chicken is an advertising program created to promote international

fast food restaurant A fast-food restaurant, also known as a quick-service restaurant (QSR) within the industry, is a specific type of restaurant that serves fast food, fast-food cuisine and has minimal Foodservice#Table service, table service. The food served ...

chain

Burger King Burger King Corporation (BK, stylized in all caps) is an American multinational chain store, chain of hamburger fast food restaurants. Headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the company was founded in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacks ...

's TenderCrisp chicken sandwich and their "Have it Your Way" campaign. Created for the

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

-based advertising firm Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CP+B) by The Barbarian Group, the program featured a

viral marketing Viral marketing is a business strategy that uses existing social networks to promote a product mainly on various social media platforms. Its name refers to how consumers spread information about a product with other people, much in the same way th ...

website, television and print campaigns and a one-time

pay-per-view Pay-per-view (PPV) is a type of pay television or webcast service that enables a viewer to pay to watch individual events via private telecast. Events can be purchased through a multichannel television platform using their electronic program ...

program. The program was similar to other marketing campaigns created by CP+B for Burger King, including the Coq Roq, Ugoff, and Sith Sense.

History

The TenderCrisp sandwich was first advertised using the Subservient Chicken character in a commercial called ''the Subservient Chicken Vest''. The commercial was the first in a series of ads for the sandwich utilizing a line of viral marketing promotions by Crispin Porter + Bogusky for Burger King. In the ad, a man is sitting in his living room directing a person in a chicken suit to behave in any way he wants. The tag line was "Chicken the way you like it." According to Jeff Benjamin, an Executive Creative Director at CP+B, the campaign evolved from a television idea into an interactive one. After the success of the Subservient Chicken, Burger King used the character in several subsequent advertising campaigns.

Other advertising programs

;Fantasy Ranch :The TenderCrisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch sandwich was promoted in the United States by a 2005 television advertising campaign directed by David LaChapelle and featuring recording artist Darius Rucker (of Hootie and the Blowfish) singing a country-style jingle to the tune of " The Big Rock Candy Mountains." The ad also starred television presenter Brooke Burke, model Vida Guerra, and members of the

Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (sometimes initialized as DCC, and officially nicknamed "America's Sweethearts") are the National Football League Cheerleading, National Football League cheerleading squad representing the Dallas Cowboys team. The ...

. ;ChickenFight.com :With the introduction of the Spicy TenderCrisp Sandwich, CP+B created the Chicken Fight ad program. The ads featured a forthcoming boxing match billed as ''The two " cockfighting chickens"'' between two people in chicken suits, one as "TC" and the other as "Spicy", a second chicken with orange "plumage". The actual "fight" was broadcast as one time short on

DirecTV DirecTV, LLC is an American Multichannel television in the United States, multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital Satellite television, s ...

. ;Big Buckin' Chicken/Big Huckin' Chicken :In March 2006, ''Big Buckin' Chicken'' commercial for Tendercrisp Cheesy Bacon Chicken Sandwich featured the Subservient Chicken again. The TV ad showed 8 mm-style footage of a cowboy riding the chicken in a

rodeo Rodeo () is a competitive equestrian sport that arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain and Mexico, expanding throughout the Americas and to other nations. It was originally based on the skills required of the working vaqu ...

while people on the sideline cheer on. An accompanying jingle states, "Big buckin' chicken/you are big, you are chicken." The voice over concludes that "the only way to beat it, is to eat it." The character was reused in another TenderCrisp ad riding a dirt bike, titled ''Big Huckin' Chicken''. ;Chicken BIG KING :In April 2014, Burger King celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Subservient Chicken in promotion of the Chicken BIG KING Sandwich. Subservient Chicken celebrated his anniversary in a short film where he trained for his return to fame after his fall into irrelevancy over the years.

Internet

In addition to the commercials, there was "The Subservient Chicken" web page. On the page, a man in a chicken costume performed a wide range of actions based on a user's input, showing pre-recorded footage and appearing like an interactive

webcam A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in Videotelephony, video telephony, live streaming and social media, and Closed-circuit television, security. Webcams can b ...

. The site takes literally the advertising slogan "Get chicken just the way you like it". The site launched on April 8, 2004. The site was created for CP+B and BK by The Barbarian Group and is hosted at GSI in

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City, Missouri, abbreviated KC or KCMO, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri by List of cities in Missouri, population and area. The city lies within Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson, Clay County, Missouri, Clay, and Pl ...

. "The guy in the suit was originally an actor, but he was claustrophobic in the suit, so he wouldn't do it. And we had to use one of the costume's designers... He would do about six moves and then we would have to fan him off because he would get so hot in the costume," says CP+B ECD Jeff Benjamin. There are more than three hundred commands that the Subservient Chicken responded to, including: * moonwalk * Throw pillow * Riverdance or Irish dance * The "elephant" * Tango * Show teeth * Be an airplane * Shake your booty * The

Robot A robot is a machine—especially one Computer program, programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions Automation, automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the robot control, co ...

* Lay egg * Walk Like an Egyptian *

Yoga Yoga (UK: , US: ; 'yoga' ; ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated with its own philosophy in ancient India, aimed at controlling body and mind to attain various salvation goals, as pra ...

* Sleep * Rage * Raise the roof * Fall * Can I eat you? * Squat * Peck Ground * Travolta *

Fight Combat (French language, French for ''fight'') is a purposeful violent Conflict (process), conflict between multiple combatants with the intent to harm the opposition. Combat may be armed (using weapons) or unarmed (Hand-to-hand combat, not usin ...

* Roshambo * Read a book from his bookcase. * Have a drink of water * Blow your nose * Barrel roll * Begone or go away * Jump rope * Hide behind sofa *

Golf swing The golf swing is the action by which players hit the ball in the sport of golf. The golf swing is a complex motion involving the whole body; the technicalities of the swing are known as golf stroke mechanics. There are differing opinions on wha ...

* Try to do a headstand * Hide * Leave * Sit * Watch TV * Pick your nose & eat it * Spin * Do the

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It has nearly 90,000 staff, some 920,000 volunteers and 12,000 branches w ...

* Fly * Handstand * Hula hoop * Cartwheel * Push-up * Electric Slide * Air Guitar *

Tap Dance Tap dance (or tap) is a form of dance that uses the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion; it is often accompanied by music. Tap dancing can also be performed with no musical accompaniment; the sound of the taps is its ow ...

* Referee * Bowl * Poke your eye out * Three-point stance * Paint * Throw a Football * Backflip * Turn off the lights * Sing * Die * Pee on the couch * Pee in the corner * Pee like a dog * Do the splits * headbang * Pray * Shakespeare *

Headbutt A headbutt or butt is a targeted strike (attack), strike with the head, typically involving the use of robust parts of the headbutter's Skull#Humans, cranium as the area of impact. The most effective headbutts strike the most sensitive areas of ...

* March like a German Soldier * Swim * Kick an imaginary soccer ball. * Jump * Act like a dog * Puke * Fart * Hug * Cabbage Patch *

Tai Chi is a Chinese martial art. Initially developed for combat and self-defense, for most practitioners it has evolved into a sport and form of exercise. As an exercise, tai chi is performed as gentle, low-impact movement in which practitioners ...

* Hula * Ballet * Breakdance * Make a sandwich * Playboy * Be a monkey * Macarena * Kiss * Go to sleep * Flap around * Be a duck * Do the silly walk *

Rock, Paper, Scissors Rock, Paper, Scissors (also known by #Names, several other names and word orders) is an Intransitive game, intransitive hand game, usually played between two people, in which each player simultaneously forms one of three shapes with an outstret ...

* touch toes * hop in one toe

References

External links

The Subservient Chicken
{{DEFAULTSORT:Subservient Chicken 2012 disestablishments in the United States 2014 introductions Burger King characters Burger King advertising Internet memes Fictional chickens Anthropomorphic chickens Female characters in advertising

History

Other advertising programs

Internet

See also

References

External links