Subservient Chicken

“The Subservient Chicken is an advertising program created to promote international fast food restaurant chain Burger King's chicken sandwich and their ‘Have it Your Way’ campaign”. (1)

I think that this is an excellent viral marketing idea. The concept that you can tell the chicken (a man in a chicken suit), to do anything- thus “having it your way” is quite innovative. This gets me thinking in a much wider sense about how a viral marketing campaign can be achieved. It means that its no longer simply limited to purely video clips, or a simple link leading elsewhere.

Another element that I like about the whole subservient idea is that there is a link that allows you to download a mask of a chicken with the instructions “be subservient”. I think that this is a nice play on effect, whereby people can be subservient- film them selves and then upload video- thus spreading the concept virally.

There have been many parodies of this particular theme, all utilising the concept of a subservient character, both in actual video and an interactive environment. Below is a screenshot of the family guy character “stewie” who reacts to a variety of phrases, not only physically, but with audio.

I really like the ideas that have been explored here, and will continue my research and see how far viral marketing can be pushed.

Below is a list of resources used within this post.

Bibliography
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Subservient_Chicken
(2) http://www.subservientchicken.com/
(3) http://www.stewielive.com/