#GreenPoop: Burger King’s Halloween Whopper comes with an unexpected side effect
Burger King’s new Halloween-themed Whopper is giving people a spooky side effect: Green poop.
Ever since the fast food giant rolled out the “A.1. Halloween Whopper,” which is just a cheeseburger sandwiched between two black buns infused with the steak sauce, social media has been giving it a collective stink eye.
On top of the already unappetizing charcoal-colored buns, those adventurous enough to try it are reporting that what goes in black comes out green.“Yesterday I had the Halloween Whopper… Today my poop is green,” tweeted an unhappy customer. “Yesterday was the last time I’ll have the Halloween Whopper.”
More like Crappy Halloween. That person’s story was corroborated on Twitter, as spotted by BuzzFeed:
Took like three days for my poop to stop being green, but was totally worth it, @BurgerKing
— Toasty (@ImHunterStanton) October 5, 2015
I ate a Halloween whopper just to see if my poop turned green and it DID — miss new booty (@simplypeachy__) October 3, 2015
Ad position: web_incontent_pos1
Dear @BurgerKing, yesterday I ate a Halloween whopper and now the color of my poop is blue green. Where my brown poo? pic.twitter.com/IVthvPpNNQ
— Smokey Martling (@SmokeyMartling) October 3, 2015
Burger King hasn’t publicly released the ingredients list, the Washington Post guesses the green poop is caused by the purple or food coloring in the buns, which causes green stools: “Ask not why the purple dye turns poop green, just go drink a bunch of grape Kool-Aid and see for yourself.”
Nah, we’re good.
While this social media outcry doesn’t rival, say, Volkswagen’s recent woes, the Burger King brand is still getting dinged. Brandwatch data provided to Digiday says the burger has collected 29,000 tweets since its debut last week, with 89 percent of them being negative.
Ad position: web_incontent_pos2
At no point did customer sentiment ever tilt into the positive range, with the largest negative sentiment occurring on Tuesday with a 98 percent negative rate.
“The reason for this dominatingly negative conversation is the effect the black-bunned burger has had on people’s feces,” notes Brandwatch analyst Kellan Terry. “There has been a large outcry of people talking about how the Halloween Whopper has turned their poop green.”
The discussion even sparked the hashtag #GreenPoop to trend, with people making memes and sharing experiences:
True story..@BurgerKing #GreenPoop pic.twitter.com/PwqnmoL2mI — Beefy Sosa (@BeefySosa) October 7, 2015
.@BurgerKing I’ve made a new graphic for your Halloween Burger. You’re welcome. #GreenPoop pic.twitter.com/IcIVemOiPX
— Giana Mucci (@RatedGiana) October 6, 2015
My #BlackWhopper didn’t make #GreenPoop–didn’t make it that far. Came back up 20 min later. #GreenPuke @BurgerKing pic.twitter.com/ViOVVRZqmZ — Nafa (@nafa222) October 7, 2015
For the curious, there are pictures of the actual green feces but that’s not safe for work — or anything.
Oddly, the chatty Burger King account on Twitter isn’t acknowledging the #GreenPoop tweets or hasn’t tweeted about the controversy. But the ever-scatalogical Charmin account has!
Whatever the color of your buns, we’ll keep them clean: https://t.co/Vk4ywWbRyj
— Charmin (@Charmin) October 7, 2015
Burger King also hasn’t immediately responded to Digiday’s request for comment.
Still, Burger King is likely reveling in all of the publicity and perhaps even purchases from curious customers.
More in Marketing
In the marketing world, anime is following in the footsteps of gaming
As marketers look to take advantage of anime’s entry into the zeitgeist, they might be wise to observe the parallels between the evolution of anime as a marketing channel and the ways brands have learned to better leverage gaming in recent years.
With the introduction of video ads and e-commerce, Roblox looks to attain platform status
Roblox is expanding into more areas than just ads in 2024. Much like platforms such as Amazon and Facebook have transcended their origins to evolve from their origins as online marketplaces and social media channels, Roblox is in the midst of a transformation into a platform for all elements of users’ virtual lives.
PepsiCo wants to remain a ‘driver of culture’ as it turns to influencers and activations amid rebrand
The soda-maker says it can translate cultural relevance into sales volume.
Ad position: web_bfu