Burger King Brazil launched a new burger, the BK Taste, and immediately ran into the obvious problem: it looks quite a lot like a Big Mac. Two patties, the sauce, the whole silhouette. The normal playbook here is to say nothing and hope nobody mentions it, or to run a "we're different because" ad that quietly confirms you are worried.
The insight is a piece of history most people have forgotten. The Whopper came first, in 1957. The Big Mac arrived a decade later, in 1967. So the accusation of copying, if you are willing to zoom out far enough, points the other way. That is a genuinely strong hand, and the temptation would be to play it as a lecture. Nobody wants a fast food chain explaining chronology at them.
Don't defend yourself. Hire the jury.
Burger King invited every lawyer in Brazil to come and rule on it. Show a valid OAB card, the Brazilian bar association ID, at a participating BK Drive, get a free BK Taste, and deliver your professional opinion on whether this constitutes a copy. The brief to the country's legal profession was, essentially: you be the judge, we'll buy lunch.
The film launched on 8 January 2025 across TV, social and OOH, and the lawyer giveaway ran 13 to 15 January. That sequencing matters. The ad sets up the legal framing, and then the stunt gives it a body: a real, checkable thing happening at real drive-thrus, with a small and very specific group of people who are all extremely online about their profession.
And note who the target is. Lawyers are not a big customer segment. They are a casting decision. You are recruiting the one profession whose opinion sounds like a verdict, whose ID card is a perfect ticket mechanic, and who will absolutely post about getting a free burger for having a law degree. The three day window keeps it an event rather than a promotion.
The stupid: build a national campaign around the fact that your new product looks like your rival's product. Say the quiet part out loud, at scale, on television. Then restrict your launch giveaway to roughly the least food-relevant demographic you could pick, and hand your brand's argument to thousands of strangers who are professionally trained to disagree with people.
The smart: naming the criticism first is what disarms it. Once BK has said "yes, people are calling it a copy" in its own ad, the insult stops being ammunition and becomes the setup for a punchline. The lawyer mechanic converts a defensive position into a game with a scoreboard, and the underlying fact (the Whopper predates the Big Mac) means the joke has a floor under it. It is cheap, it is fast, and the free burgers cost less than a week of media.
The steal: when your weakness is the thing everyone is already saying, stop treating it as a comms problem and make it the plot. Ads that pre-empt the obvious objection buy an enormous amount of goodwill, because the audience gets to feel like you are in on it with them rather than managing them.
The caveat is the one that hangs over all of Burger King's rival-baiting work: it only lands while you are the challenger. Punching up is charming. The same joke from the market leader is just a big company being mean about a smaller one. BK Brazil can run this because everyone knows the scoreboard. Borrow the technique, not the tone, unless you are genuinely the smaller party.
Straight talk: no sales lift, traffic or earned-media figures have been published for this one that I can verify, so there are no stat tiles today rather than invented ones. What is on the record is the mechanic, the dates, and heavy trade and national press pickup in Brazil. Treat it as a well-made idea whose commercial result is not public.
Client: Burger King Brazil (Zamp S.A.)
President + CEO: Filipe Bartholomeu
Agency: AlmapBBDO, São Paulo
CCO: Pernil
Executive creative directors: Fernando Duarte, Henrique Del Lama
Creatives: Fernando Saú, Hiroito Takahashi, Isabella Remelli
Image production: Sentimental Filme · Sound: Jamute
Ran: film from 8 January 2025; lawyer giveaway 13 to 15 January 2025
AlmapBBDO, the work
Ads of the World, BK Taste for Lawyers (credits)
LBB, Burger King Brazil gets lawyers to defend the BK Taste
GKPB, launch details and dates (Portuguese)
The devices behind this one, from our library of ways in: