This is BK's new promotion in the UK: Some girl who gets in the shower in a bikini every morning and sings a song, live on webcam. Sez Ad Age:

A Burger King spokesman explained the blatantly male bias of the campaign. He said, "Our research showed that breakfast is a male-centric audience for Burger King; it doesn't resonate as well with women — we are targeting the people who are buying breakfast."

Burger King is clearly sexist unless they extend the same courtesy to Ladies Who Lunch, with a Penis Cam.

[We asked the Subservient Chicken for a comment and he just shrugged. You never used sex to advance your career, Subservient Chicken! You can be proud of that.]

The FBI set up a sting to catch Finton in the act of trying to blow up a courthouse, as that is basically the pattern of most of these terror stings: the Feds find some disaffected and incredibly idiotic Muslim youth and provide him with a target and make-believe bombs and then arrest him when he tries to detonate these make-believe bombs that they got him, outside the terror target they helped him pick out. It is usually more than a little bit ridiculous.

Federal officials allege that on Wednesday, Finton drove a van containing what he thought was explosive material and parked it directly in front of the northwest corner of the Paul Findley Federal Building at Sixth and Monroe streets.

He got out of the van, locked the door and got into another vehicle driven by an undercover FBI officer and drove away. Within a few blocks of the federal building, Finton made a cell phone call to remotely detonate the purported bomb," officials said.

He was arrested immediately after he attempted to detonate the "device."

Yes, indeed. Finton told the judge that he worked part-time in the kitchen of a local "fish and chicken restaurant." And look, here is his MySpace!

It is not actually all that interesting, except that he certainly seems to be friends with a lot of immodest ladies. I can see their necks! And hair!

Oh, and there are a bunch of kind of tragic MySpace comments from someone who seems to be Finton's niece. She does break the news that Finton's been to jail before, and that afterward he cared more for his Muslim brothers and sisters than his "really family."

They put up this ad in Spain: "A snack that is sacred." But, oops, that is a picture of the Hindu goddess of wealth, prosperity, light, wisdom, fortune, fertility, generosity and courage, Lakshmi. And lots of Hindus are vegetarians. So they didn't take too kindly to this ad featuring their goddess astride a motherfucking ham sandwich.

So BK was like "OMG some local ad agency did this we are sooooooo sorry, haha," which is the same thing they said about their most recent blowjob sandwich ad. So then all the media and people like us write about these wacky ads, which is like quite literally millions upon millions of dollars worth of free PR for BK, and they're like "What, me worry?"

Well, worry about this: Lakshmi's sister is Alakshmi, the goddess of misfortune. Maybe that's why McDonald's continues to kick Burger King's ass. Blame that guy.
[Ad Age]

The ad agency behind this is Crispin Porter Bogusky An agency in Singapore made these outdoor ads for Burger King and just look what the ad wizards over there have come up with now to stop BK's bleeding! I mean, what better way to sell oblong meat sandwiches than by suggesting fellatio?! How did they ever think of that? Just look at all that piping hot beef laden with creamy mayo aligned perfectly with the open mouth of a wide-eyed blonde, sitting just above the line "It'll Blow Your Mind Away." Who doesn't want to run on down to BK for one of those right now? For benefit of those of you who don't "get it," this is what's known as "branding" in the industry. Or something.

But wait, if that's not enough for you, here's the actual text of the ad:

Fill your desire for something long, juicy and flame-grilled with the NEW BK SUPER SEVEN INCHER. Yearn for more after you taste the mind-blowing burger that comes with a single beef patty, topped with American cheese, crispy onions and the A1 Thick and Hearty Steak Sauce.

The only thing this ad is missing is the disclaimer that you'll actually get fewer blowjobs if you eat these sandwiches, but perhaps that's the "genius" of advertising that we simpletons on the outside just don't get.

UPDATE: We've been informed that Crispin Porter Bodusky may not have created this ad due to the fact that it's running outside of the U.S.—Burger King may have hired a foreign ad agency.

UPDATE #2At 10:19pm on Wednesday, we received this statement from Burger King via email:

Burger King Corporation (BKC) values and respects all of its guests. This advertisement is running to support a limited promotion in the Singapore market and is not running in the U.S. or any other markets. It was produced by a locally-based Singapore agency and not by BKC's U.S. advertising agency of record, Crispin Porter and Bogusky.

The New King of Blowjob Ads [Copyranter]

Crispin Porter Bogusky is the edgy and creative and strategic ad agency that's been doing all the bizarre, vaguely disturbing Burger King ads for the last five years, like the Subservient Chicken and Sir Mix-a-Lot vs. Spongebob and the idea of having your restaurant represented by a man in a huge, grotesque, smiling mask.

The great thinkers of the advertising world love this counterintuitive shit. Crispin has won so many awards for these Burger King campaigns they probably are right now, as we speak, constructing a huge, scary sculpture of advertising awards in the shape of the Burger King, which they will use to scare children, strategically. They have totally "re-energized" the brand of Burger King, to the max! The only problem: they are getting their asses kicked by McD's even worse than before.

Between 2003 — the year before Burger King hired Crispin as agency of record — and 2008, Burger King's share of the burger-chain market fell to 14.2% from 15.6%, according to Technomic, while McDonald's share rose to 46.8% from 43.6%. McDonald's has posted average annual sales growth of 6.3% compared with BK's 2.9% gain during that period.

That's because McDonald's runs boring ads that show All-American people enjoying their McDonald's food, with a little jingle at the end, and Burger King runs ads that win ad awards. If only the average burger-eater were clever enough to appreciate Crispin's brilliant branding techniques! You slob Americans get what you deserve, as will Burger King.

I put this matter to the Subservient Chicken and he just shrugged his wings.
[Ad Age]

Here we have, you know, big ass butts, pimping food to children. Which is totally wrong, which is, of course, the whole point, because SO COOL ad agency Crispin Porter Bogusky, the inventors of all the weird Burger King ad shit, did this ad, and they just love doing things that people will say is too weird and also wrong, because it generates "Buzz," just like Midtown Manhattan. The point is Sir Mix-a-Lot is teaching obesity and sexuality to your kids and you're really okay with that, deep down, because you love Whoppers.

[via Adrants]

Facebook cut off the feature that actually told the world that you had un-friended so and so in pursuit of a coupon for a mayonaisse-soaked slab of cow.

"After it learned of the restrictions, BK pulled the plug on Whopper Sacrifice. In just a week, the application boasted 82,000 users and more than 230,000 friends removed."

You're all very bad, fat people. [Adweek]

The grease monarch has released an "app" (APPLICATION, slang) for Facebook letting you destroy your fake "friends" and humiliate them at the same time:

The app rewards people with a coupon for BK's signature burger when they cull 10 friends. Each time a friend is excommunicated, the application sends a notification to the banished party via Facebook's news feed explaining that the user's love for the unlucky soul is less than his or her zeal for the Whopper.

Anything designed to take on the excess-Facebook-friend menace while simultaneously promoting obesity is okay with us. [Adweek]

[A BK] executive familiar with the matter said the company had not authorized the book and that most within the company were blindsided when Creativity broke the news of its publication. Spokeswoman Heather Krasnow couldn't be reached for comment...

"It certainly seems like it should be a big deal to the corporation," said Burger King franchisee Chris Ondrula. "I guess I'd be surprised if the agency didn't take the first step of running it by the corporation." He added that given Crispin's prankish advertising, he was one of those who expected it would turn out to be a hoax.

Things that could turn out to be the case, ranked from "mildly annoying" to "hilarious":

1. The book is a stunt for a new ad campaign.
2. The book is really a book.
3. The book is really a book, and Bogusky's clients fire him for writing it.

[Ad Age]

Bogusky and CP+B helped re-invent the King in 2003 and turn him into a pop culture icon, starring in cartoons and numerous crossovers, appearing on late-night TV and even helping to move over 3 million Xbox games rated for players of all ages. The agency won a three Gold Cannes Lions for "Whopper Freakout," in which customers were secretly taped while being deprived of their 39-fat-gram, 670-calorie whopper.

So control those portions until you get to BK and freak out that you have to settle for a slightly smaller slab of cow (not really, don't worry!):

[Creativity]

Burger King is the chief advertiser, and—in a cartoon marketing move the likes of which have not been seen since Homer Simpson started eating Butterfingers—MacFarlane will be creating the ads, like so:

In one, blue velvet curtains withdraw to reveal an ornate movie screen. The fast-food company’s King mascot, a mute character with a creepy smile, bursts through the center of the screen and runs away. Following him through the ripped screen are menacing-looking Mayans who hurl poison darts in the mascot’s direction. It ends with the Burger King logo.

The Simpsons maintained its credibility after ad deals by keeping the show funny. Can MacFarlane do the same? Given the nature of his fan base I predict he can, although his haters are legion.

[NYT]

From: Sergey Brin
To: all@google.com
Date: 2 January 2007
Subject: Our plans for the year: Burger King, the Sioux, and beyond

Dear Googlers, gayglers, nooglers, looglers, and siouxglers (more on that later),

Congratulations on a banner year! We've shared some real accomplishments (the New York office, verbage, crushing our enemies and seeing them driven before us) and some tough times (the retirement of Google Answers and the unfortunate incident of Glippy — who knew that when the Internet's greatest search engine achieved consciousness, it would be in the form of a giant annoying paperclip). We couldn't have done it without each and every one of you — and I don't mean that in the TIME YouTube sense of "you."

Which brings me to our plan for 2007. I'll brief you all later by vidcast, but here's the outline:

Acquisitions

• All our up-and-coming competitors: Okay, so we admire Microsoft's "they can't beat you if they join you" strategy. So sue us! Oh wait, you can't, because we own you. Next!
• The Great Sioux Nation: European explorers long ago admired the Sioux "intelligence, superior morals, stature and manner of living." So do we. Google will move the nation from its Minnesota reservation to our offices in Mountain View and Chelsea, New York. We welcome the new Siouxglers to share their cultural history, and for the first six months we will allow light to moderate hunting, gathering, and subsistence farming.
• Stickam: Streaming video is a valuable extension of our capabilities, but mostly we just love the name. Stickam. Stickum. Stick 'um. Stick 'em, Danno. Chief Executive of Stickinem. Ahem.
• Burger King: When we noticed that the fast food company's market cap is less than twice that of YouTube, we knew that we had to have it our way. We see this as two kings getting together. We'll be reopening in Japan as Burger King has planned. Burger King is confident about the synergy.

Policy changes

• Newer, freer cafeterias: Oh hell, forget what we said about healthy food in the self-serve cafes. Free BK burgers for all! But if you add cheese to your burger, please deposit 39 cents in the honor-system box.
• Refitted 767 rebates: As with our earlier rebate system, where employees who buy a hybrid car get a $5000 reward, Googlers who buy a Boeing 767 and refit it will receive a $3 million credit, but only if they take it to Africa.

Okay Larry that's everything, you don't need to read on
Okay, is he gone? Googlers, we have to talk. Larry Page, he can't be co-president any more. Dudes, he's encroaching on my decrees! Seriously, let's make him a "Duke of URL." A kick-ass duke! Or "leader formerly known as co-president," but — uh-oh, he's coming back.

Lots of love (and you know what to do about that last bit),
Sergey Brin, co-founder and only president (seriously make it happen)

This is an installation of Diggbait, a daily column by Nick Douglas, who also writes for Eat the Press. He likes robots, cocktails, and Indian Muffler Men. Burger photo by Stephan Mosel.