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Burger King Gets Creative with User-Generated Moustaches
July 17, 2007
Men and women alike can draw and shape custom moustaches and send singing telegrams to friends in this Burger King campaign.
Creative Notes
Firefox and Opera compatible.
Campaign Details
Client: Burger King
Creative Agency: Crispin Porter + Bogusky
Campaign Insight
If you haven't caught moustache fever quite yet, this campaign from Burger King for the Western Whopper might do the trick. The hilarious commercials have been a hit both online and off, and each of them flash the URL for Burger King's Pet Moustache site.

The site welcomes you with a "Howdy. Welcome to petmoustache.com. Ya'll ready to party?" And you'll find yourself ready to create your own pet moustache, saying heck ya!

The façade of an old barber shop loads to show what your grooming options are. Once you upload your photo, you can add tonic to your face to grow your hair. Then there are scissors, a razor, wax, a comb and even a moustache guide to help you model your perfect 'stache. Once you do that, you can create a singing telegram to send to friends, mosey over to the top 10, or take a picture for posterity.

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This promotion really develops an identity for the Western Burger and uses comedy and ingenuity to get people excited and involved.
-- Krisserin Canary, associate editor, iMedia Communications
Editor's Note
Creative Showcase is meant to be a teaching tool and an inspiration for our readers. We comment only on creative that we really love. Our panelists discuss what makes it great, but if they feel there were missed opportunities that would have made it better, we invite them to mention those. And finally, we seek out a wide range of opinions that reflect the marketplace for the panel, in order to provide constructive, useable feedback for agencies, clients and others involved in these creative pieces.
The Panel
Even though I'm not quite getting the Burger King and facial hair connection (an extension of the King's beard maybe?), this is a fun and easy-to-use site where you can upload your own photo and create a moustache. 

The fact that you can send a singing telegram is a nice touch as well. Where most of these sites fall apart is in the ease-of-use department...but that's not the case here.

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The waxing and combing took a little practice, but I got it after a while. I just wish there was a little more Burger King branding within the experience. Overall, it's a fun little microsite.
-- Matt Wright, director, online video strategy, HowStuffWorks

No "Brokeback Mountain" jokes here. This viral campaign for Burger King is finger lickin' fun. Not exactly "hot on the heals" of the Subservient Chicken, but Burger King's Pet Moustache campaign is more fun than a scorpion in your sleeping bag. Handlebar moustaches haven't been this much fun since the original policeman left the Village People. The TV commercials are great, too (I told you she wasn't a real blonde), but I'm just going to focus on the Pet Moustache project.

You gotta bring out your inner cowboy to eat the new Western Whopper. And nothing is more cowboy than a good ol' Wyatt Earp on your upper lip. So slap one on yourself, your friends, your girlfriend, your mom, whomever. The Pet Moustache site makes it easy to upload, zoom and rotate pictures so you can line up that mortician just right.

The folks at CP+B did a very thorough job on the extras, making the site a little informative as well. The "Grooming Tips" provide you with a guide of a few different styles of moustaches, and some tips on using the comb, scissors, wax and tonic to make it look like you've been wearing "The Outlaw" since you were saddling up your first pony.

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The viral components to the site were also a lot of fun. In addition to slapping some peach fuzz fun on your upper lip, they added a tool to outline the mouth and turn your picture into a singing telegram, just like the guys in Jib Jab. Okay, not just like it, but after a few tries, I found my groove, emailing pictures of friends and family with their new lip tickler, singing songs about their new 'stache.

The only drawback to the fun of a Pet Moustache is that you can't officially have more than one picture per account. You can create and email as many as you like, though, and the URLs are different, so it's only a little critique for an otherwise "yippie-ki-yay" site.
-- Corey Kronengold, director of corporate communications, Tremor Media

Footnote: Submissions are judged by a panel of industry experts from and based on the following criteria: how the creative captures the specific customer; how it meets the brand's business needs; impact of execution; and creativity. If you would like your creative considered for Creative Showcase, send an email to creative@imediaconnection.com.