Burger King launched a new campaign, “There’s A New King And It’s You,” with an ad that aired during the Oscars on March 15, per details shared with Marketing Dive. It also officially “fires” the creepy King mascot that has been part of the brand’s marketing over the last two decades.
The ad traces the history of Burger King through the years and admits that “fast food just fell off, us included,” noting guest complaints about “old restaurants, slow service [and] simple mistakes.” The effort is the latest step in the fast-food brand’s Reclaim The Flame turnaround plan that has seen the Restaurant Brands International chain modernize its restaurants and invest in marketing.
“When creating ‘There’s A New King And It’s You’ we knew for sure: this can’t just be another ad campaign. It needs to document the real, years long, story of co-creating the future of Burger King with guests,” said Matt McNulty, executive vice president, and Ben Pfutzenreuter, executive creative director of Burger King creative agency of record OKRP, in a statement.
The guest-centric campaign also builds on Burger King’s recent efforts that put the brand in consumers’ hands, including a Million Dollar Whopper contest, the “Whopper By You” campaign and a recent effort that saw Burger King President Tom Curtis give out his phone number to solicit feedback.
“We recognize that there was something to that idea, as we were also doing a lot of work over the last four years trying to put the guests at the forefront,” said Joel Yashinsky, CMO of Burger King U.S. and Canada. “We have plans to continue this platform for the foreseeable future. We think this is something that is going to connect with guests.”
Leadership and partners
The tone of new campaign is reminiscent of Domino’s 2010 “Pizza Turnaround” effort that offered a similar mea culpa and helped kick off years of growth for the pizza chain. Both Curtis and RBI Executive Chairman J. Patrick Doyle were executives at Domino’s during that time.
“Both came from Domino's and had that experience of how you reconnect your brand to the guests, and I think that helped guide us in this work that we're doing,” Yashinsky said.
The new campaign comes a week after Burger King appointed Mojo Supermarket as social agency of record and Praytell as public relations AOR for the U.S., adding to a roster that since 2022 has included Omnicom Media Group’s PHD as media AOR and Chicago’s OKRP as creative AOR.
“Everything we're doing is working to level up the brand, whether it's our social media work, whether it's our traditional mainline work, whether it's our media partnerships, but also obviously across all elements of the business,” Yashinsky said.
Burger King kicked off its Reclaim the Flame plan in 2022 by dedicating $400 million to restaurant updates and marketing, and recently reaffirmed its growth strategy during its company Investor Day. Franchisees voted to continue an elevated ad fund contribution of 4.5% of sales through at least 2027 — a vote of confidence in the chain’s plans.
“Our franchisees see where we're going in terms of telling that story,” Yashinsky said. “We have not just their commitment but their support in what we're doing at Burger King right now, which is so incredibly important in a franchise organization, especially in the restaurant industry, and couldn't be more pleased with how supportive they have been to not just marketing, but to the entire work we're trying to do.”
A brand for everyone
Along with the Reclaim the Flame plan, Burger King is prioritizing marketing-specific opportunities around winning on burgers — the goal of its recent Whopper upgrades — and attracting kids and families. A recent collaboration timed to the release of “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants” boosted the chain’s kids meals to their highest sales level in the last ten years.
To continue those gains, the King mascot — created by agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky in 2004 — had to go. The buzz and interest generated by the internet-favorite mascot was outsized by the consumers that were turned off by it.
“There was this creepy factor of the King that impacted the business in other ways. While it may have had some some positive reflections within certain groups and demographics, there was a large subset where it was off-putting and polarizing,” Yashinsky said. “When the King was in its heyday, we completely left the kids and family business to really just disappear from Burger King in a significant manner.”
Burger King aired “There’s A New King And It’s You” during the Oscars, a telecast that has seen audience declines in recent years but still notched nearly 20 million viewers in 2025. The launch also comes as the NCAA basketball tournament tournament is set to begin, with the NBA and NHL playoffs not far off.
“March [has] a lot of high energy, big viewing moments. The Oscars is one of them. March Madness is another,” Yashinsky said. “You're going to see us in those areas, looking for those programmings with higher profiles, because we do believe this is a critical moment for us, as we believe we are a brand for everyone, [we’re] making sure we have a broad approach to our media strategy.”
