Welcome to the home of Noah Brier. I'm the co-founder of Variance and general internet tinkerer. Most of my writing these days is happening over at Why is this interesting?, a daily email full of interesting stuff. This site has been around since 2004. Feel free to get in touch. Good places to get started are my Framework of the Day posts or my favorite books and podcasts. Get in touch.

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BK Goes Viral . . . Again

Burger King has a new microsite called Coq Roq. To be completely honest, I haven’t spent more than two minutes on it and I probably don’t have much to add to this discussion (frankly, I’m bored of hearing about Burger King microsites). But my question here is still relevant, I think:

Is anyone other than advertising industry folks talking about this stuff?

One of the problems with working in the industry is that you get a skewed view of what matters and what doesn’t. The only place I’ve read about Coq Roq is on marketing sites, which leads me to believe it’s entirely possible that the rest of the world doesn’t give a shit (as usual, I could also be entirely wrong).

So, if anyone knows the answer to this question, please let me know (and please don’t answer that it doesn’t matter if the rest of the wold knows — that any publicity is good publicity. I get that.)

Since I’m talking about Coq Roq, I thought I might also add in this cute little picture which appeared on the site up until yesterday. At that point it was taken down, apparently for non-taste-related reasons. According to this AdAge article (where I also stole the screenshot and found via AdPulp), Burger King justifies the change by saying a “malfunctions in the Flash and XML programming were responsible for putting the “Groupies love the Coq” on the photos of the young women.”

coqroq-adage.jpg

Now I don’t claim to know a lot about Flash and XML (well, maybe I do), but something tells me this:

Neither Flash nor XML has the ability to write sexual innuendos AND find the appropriate photos to place them on. It’s an either/or deal.

July 28, 2005