There are so many food photography tutorials teaching us how to make food look as good and as appetizing as possible. But Burger King decided to challenge the classic food commercials we’re all used to seeing. They claim that “the beauty of real food is that it gets ugly.” So, they filmed a commercial showing a Whopper as it gets nasty and moldy over time.
I find the beginning of the timelapse pretty interesting, not just its ending. At the very beginning, we can see that food stylists use some tricks for making a burger look more photogenic. They don’t use the nasty ones though, at least not that we can see. When the Whopper is ready, it’s just left to sit there for over a month, with beautiful studio lighting and a clean black background. And as time goes by, it becomes all green with mold. Yuck!
So, what’s the point of this commercial? Why would you want to see a nasty, moldy burger? Well, Burger King has rolled out a Whopper that’s free from artificial preservatives. “Isn’t it beautiful?” the company asks. They want to point out that preservative-free food will spoil over time, so they decided to film the process as a part of their ad. And maybe, just maybe, they wanted to troll McDonald’s a bit. But no matter how unordinary (and pretty gross) the ad is, I think it’s a brilliant idea and a very smart marketing move. How do you like it?
