Men tired of eating chick food revolt in the :60 “Manthem,” a gloriously tongue-in-cheek celebration of a man’s right to eat meat–more specifically, Burger King’s Texas Double Whopper.
A music video of sorts, the commercial is set to “I Am Man,” a spoof of Helen Reddy’s 1970s hit “I Am Woman.” Crispin Porter +Bogusky (CP+B), Miami, associate creative director/copywriter Bob Cianfrone, who conceptualized the spot with senior art director James Dawson-Hollis, wrote the lyrics to “I Am Man.”
An excerpt:
“I am man
Hear me roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And I’m way too hungry
To settle for chick food
Cuz my stomach’s starting to growl
And I’m going on the prowl
For a Texas Double Whopper
Man, that’s good!”
While the client fell in love with the concept and the song when they were presented, according to CP+B VP/creative director Rob Reilly, there was concern that Reddy might not give the agency permission to parody her feminist anthem. “We didn’t know if she would be interested in selling it no matter what the price,” Reilly shared.
In the end, the agency got the yes from Reddy it had hoped for. “She thought it was funny,” Reilly related, “and once she approved the lyrics, it was like, ‘Okay, let’s go!’ “
WHERE’S THE BEEF? Partner/director Bryan Buckley of bicoastal/international Hungry Man hasn’t had a burger in years (he gave up red meat awhile back). But he has shot numerous Burger King spots, including the blockbuster Whopperettes spot “America’s Favorite,” and CP+B was confident he could tap into the meat lover’s mentality.
For his part, Buckley couldn’t resist tackling the spot for the simple fact that the concept was so damn funny.
Choosing to shoot “I Am Man” on location in Rio de Janeiro, one of Buckley’s first challenges arose during the casting process. “In casting, one of the things we talked about was, ‘Do you go with men who can actually sing and dance, or do you go with guys who actually can’t do that because that would seem more macho?’ ” Buckley recounted.
Ultimately, the director decided that his cast of “a couple hundred guys” would be made up mainly of men with no singing and dancing experience; for key sequences where marks had to be hit, he hired a small group of professional singers and dancers.
With the exception of a Canadian actor, the rest of Buckley’s cast came from Brazil, and therefore spoke Portuguese. A dialect coach was brought in to teach the men, who lip sync in the spot, “I Am Man.”
Meanwhile, a food stylist came down from the U.S. with a huge supply of Texas Double Whoppers for use in the spot because there isn’t a Burger King in Rio. The Burger King storefront seen in the spot was built for the shoot.
Over the course of the shoot, Buckley and DP Scott Henriksen shot a series of vignettes displaying manly behavior–everything from a guy splitting a cinder block in half with a karate chop to men ripping off and burning their underwear.
Then came the scene in which a group of men toss a minivan over the side of a highway and into a dump truck. Not content with just any dump truck, Buckley had to find the biggest dump truck he could, procuring one from Sao Paolo, which is six hours away from Rio. Given the distance and the size of the truck (the tires alone were eight-feet tall), it had to be taken apart and shipped down to Rio on a barge. “We didn’t know if it was going to make it,” Buckley said. “That was a production nightmare.”
Thankfully, it did.
THE BIG FINISH As if seeing a minivan tossed off a highway into a dump truck isn’t enough of a climax, by the way, “Manthem” has a man, hooked up to the dump truck via chains, towing it and its content on his strength alone. He has incentive to move forward–a woman stands just before him holding a shovel on which sits a Texas Double Whopper in front of his face.
It’s an unforgettable finish.
“I’m a big proponent of spots ending well,” Reilly remarked. “Great endings are what makes spots memorable.”
Gavin Cutler of Mackenzie Cutler, New York, cut “Manthem,” packing the :60 with as much macho behavior as humanly possible.
It was up to the crew at Beacon Street Music, Venice, Calif.–including composers John Nau and Andrew Feltenstein and vocal arranger Brian Chapman–to make “I Am Man” really sing. “When Crispin first came to us with the idea, we knew it was going to be killer,” Feltenstein said.
Beacon Street Studios produced the demo CP+B used to sell Burger King on the idea of the spot, keeping “I Am Man” close to the original song it parodies. But as the project evolved, “I Am Man” took on a new life. “John and I decided to re-cut the entire song again. We decided to create a ‘Manthem,’ ” Feltenstein said. “It was still the same song. We just beefed it up–so to speak. “
While “Manthem” is a testosterone-fest, it’s fueled by humor, which may explain why women–at least this one–like the spot. “We didn’t want it to be a male thing only. We wanted women like you to react to it because a lot of our base is women,” Reilly said. “So in the end, it was more about the food, and I think everybody can relate to the message.”
