The McWhopper

For years the question hangs over you like an eternal choice: Big Mac or Whopper? It’s stupid and tribal, one of those meaningless brand loyalties you’re born into and never question. You know which one you prefer, and the preference probably has nothing to do with the actual burger—it’s about what you grew up eating, where you sat, who you were with.

Then in 2015, Burger King does something genuinely funny. On World Peace Day, of all dates, they write McDonald’s an open letter proposing a ceasefire. For one day, they say, let’s put aside this ancient rivalry and create the McWhopper: a burger combining the Big Mac and the Whopper. The absurdity is the whole point. Two global corporations deciding that the thing worth marketing is peace between them.

Of course, it works. Of course people talk about it. McDonald’s doesn’t even respond, and it still works, because Burger King gets credit for thinking of it, for being the cool one, for making a joke that acknowledges how stupid all this is. What gets me is how transparent the calculation is. They’re selling peace as a product, and everyone can see it, and it doesn’t matter. The joke lands anyway.

Maybe that’s the thing: the marketing is so cynical it wraps back around to honesty. The stunt doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is. And that works.