Whopper Facebook Weirdness

"When will the madness end at Burger King?" asks Nancy Luna of Fast Food Maven, a blog by the Orange County Register.

It's a good question. The chain's marketing campaigns are becoming more obnoxious all the time. The latest promotion, "Whopper Sacrifice," offers a free Whopper to anyone who deletes 10 Facebook friends.

On the promotion's Facebook page, Burger King asks: "What would you do for a free WHOPPER? Would you insult an elected official? Would you do a naked handstand? Would you go so far as to turn your back on friendship?"

Why stop there? Would you cheat on your spouse? Would you kill a guy? Would you dose your city's water system with anthrax?

Are people really this lustful for a substandard, mass-produced, $2 hamburger? Some are, apparently. The Facebook application page says that it has more than 30,000 "active daily users." To make things worse, when you "unfriend" 10 friends, the application tells those friends that you have deleted them, and that you did so for a free Whopper.

This may be the worst of a recent slew of puerile promotions dreamed up by the goofy frat boys who are apparently in charge of Burger King's campaigns (the ad agency: Crispin Porter and Bogusky). It comes on top of Flame, a Burger King-branded body spray that carries, according to the ads, "a hint of flame-broiled meat"; and the Whopper Virgins campaign, which foists the chain's nasty products on unsuspecting third-worlders, asking them to drop their rice bowls and choose between Whoppers and Big Macs.