The Subservient Chicken

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The Subservient Chicken is a viral marketing promotion of Burger King's line of chicken sandwiches and their "Have it Your Way" campaign. It was created for Miami advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky by The Barbarian Group. The site is hosted at GSI Inc in Kansas City, Missouri. The site launched on April 8, 2004.

The campaign is based on a web site that features a person in a chicken costume. The actor performs a wide range of actions based on a user's input, showing pre-recorded footage and appearing like an interactive webcam. The site takes literally the advertising slogan "Get chicken just the way you like it".

There are more than three hundred commands that the Subservient Chicken will respond to, including:

Michael Jackson dance moves such as "moonwalk" Riverdance The "elephant" Lay egg Walk Like an Egyptian Yoga Rage Dog Light a fart Squat Taco Bell Fight Read a book from his bookcase. Have a drink of water

Barrel roll Begone Golf Swing Hide Leave Spin Do the YMCA Fly Handstand Cartwheel Push-up Electric Slide Backflip

The Subservient Chicken, responding to the command "Michael Jackson moves"

When told to perform sex acts, take off his mask, or do anything the Subservient Chicken considers offensive, the chicken walks up to the camera and shakes a scolding chicken finger in disappointment. When told to eat food from rival fast food chain McDonald's, he approaches the camera and places his finger down his throat, while when told to eat Burger King he has a more positive response. The chicken responds to the command "smoke crack" by smoking, but when told to "smoke a bong" he waggles his finger scoldingly. When told anything with the word "me" in it, it approaches the camera and looks at you, turning its head a few times.

After the success of the Subservient Chicken, Burger King used the character in subsequent advertising campaigns. In 2005, Burger King introduced its Chicken Fights campaign; the two "cockfighting chicken" advertising characters it is using in its chicken meat marketing campaign are modeled off this chicken.

A subsequent 2006 commercial showed a man riding on the chicken in a 60's-ish camera view complete with the friendly-like song, "Big Huckin' Chicken".

[edit] See also

• Virtual Bartender
• OurPrisoner, a six-month, 24/7, live reality show with the same basis

[edit] External links

• The Subservient Chicken
• Snopes Urban Legends: Subservient Chicken
• Word on Word of Mouth explaining Subservient Chicken
• Dissecting The Subservient Chicken, on Adweek.com
• Subservient Chicken Verb List

[edit] Parodies and similar sites

• The Subservient President

• Subservient Blair
• Subservient Stickman
• Nevashut: Midnight Pringles Holiday Hunt
• Stewie Live - Fox marketing campaign for Family Guy.
• Subservient Programmer - Requires Internet Explorer 6.0+
• Subservient Donald - Donald Trump
• Female bartender
• Twice the fun - two female bartenders