In keeping with a more mainstream appetite for porn and the increasing familiarity with Internet porn sites, Burger King tapped into the online fascination with webcam sites in which models act out anything that is desired by the user.
Calling it an "interactive peepshow," the fast-food chain has created a flash-powered website called subservientchicken.com which features an actor dressed in a chicken suit standing idly in a living room in a garter belt, ready and waiting to please.
The end result, hopes Burger King, is that more people will buy its new chicken sandwich.
One of the campaign's slogans is: "Get Chicken the Way You Want It."
The advertising agency responsible for the racy campaign, Crispin Porter & Bogusky, continues to deny that there was ever any connection to porn cam websites.
Through a somewhat cloudy, webcam frame, the Subservient Chicken performs any number of requests via a request box, which includes dancing, push ups, jumping jacks, smoking a cigarette, grabbing its crotch, laying an egg, peeing on the couch, or just flapping its wings and hopping up and down on the sofa.
However, when XBiz asked the chicken to perform more explicit acts, requests were met with a disapproving finger-wagging from the chicken.
The Subservient Chicken site (subservientchicken.com) also comes with a photo gallery of more provocative shots of the chicken, close-ups of its face and crotch, and a "chicken mask" link through which fans of the sexy chicken can cut out a life-size mask to wear in the comfort of their own homes. The slogan for the mask is: "Be subservient."
According to Crispin Porter & Bogusky, the Subservient Chicken site was an immediate online hit and has received between 15-20 million hits since its launch last week. The campaign will also make a debut on BET, Comedy Central, and Spike TV, Burger King announced.
"We wanted a really edgy way of talking about 'having it your way' for chicken," Blake Lewis, a spokesperson for Burger King, toldXBiz.
When asked whether Burger King intentionally modeled the chicken camsite after porn, Lewis said that it is all in the eye of the beholder.
"I've heard comments across the board about what it was modeled after, but the porn tie-in was not our intention." Lewis told XBiz. "Our goal was to present something that the 20-30-year-old market could relate to. They are looking for something that is edgy and out of the norm and this was a somewhat risky strategy to pursue, but it has been resoundingly successful."
