The purpose of this research is to examine the Burger King advertising campaign built around the slogan, "Sometimes You've Gotta Break the Rules," with reference to the Social Intervention Model. The plan of the research will be to set forth the background from which Burger King's campaign emerged, and to discuss and cite the Social Intervention Model as a frame from which the efficacy and techniques employed by Burger King's campaign to affect consumer attitudes and behavior.
The background of Burger King's break the rules campaign illustrates that the franchisor deliberately and programmatically planned to manipulate the advertising communications process so as to create a particular perception of reality that would also create a need for Burger King's competitive products on one hand and develop a close relationship between corporation and consumer on the other. As regards the climate of competition, there is abundant evidence that Burger King deliberately focused (or was advised to deliberately focus) on the break the rules idea. It was in late 1989 that Burger King gave its brand identity advertising business to the D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B) agency (Lafayette and Levin, 1989). The ad firm Saatchi & Saatchi was awarded that portion of Burger King's ad account that had to do with what is known as creative brand retailing.
This ad agency business accounted for some $200 million in Burger King's advertising revenues, and this explains trade magazine references to Burger King's "most eagerly anticipated advertising campaign since its unremarkable slogan 'We do it like you'd do it'" in 1987 (Hume, 1989, September 25, p. 1). This dramatic change of ad agencies, which was expected to deliver "unexpected" creative results and help Burger King's fortunes rise (Hume, 1989, September 25, passim), followed a protracted decline in Burger King's market share from 19.9 percent in 1987 to 19.2 percent in 1989; muc...