This Burger King Super Bowl Ad Features Old Footage Of Andy Warhol Eating A Whopper

#EatLikeAndy

Burger King aired an ad during the Super Bowl on Sunday that featured archival footage of late artist Andy Warhol eating a Whopper.

the whopper's out of the bag. keep eating like Andy. #EatLikeAndy

The 45-second spot is simple. It shows Warhol taking the burger out of the bag and eating it. The spot ends with a hashtag: #EatLikeAndy.

A spokesperson for Burger King told BuzzFeed News that the ad was "37 years in the making."

The footage was originally shot by a Danish filmmaker, Jorgen Leth, in 1982. It was a four-minute video he shot as a part of his film, “66 Scenes from America."

The spokesperson said the ad was "meant to break through the traditional Super Bowl commercial break" as "an almost silent, yet powerful work of art.

"Beyond the simplicity of the spot, it has a deeper meaning," they said. "It is also a testament to one of Warhol’s most iconic quotes about the greatness of the United States: 'What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest.'"

The fast-food chain's global chief marketing officer, Fernando Machado, told Adweek an ad agency found the footage through research for the brand. They then worked to obtain rights to the footage from the Andy Warhol Foundation and those who owned the film rights.

Some fans of Warhol appreciated the ad.

Being a lifelong unapologetic Andy Warhol fanatic, nothing’s made me happier tonight than seeing his ability to still completely bewilder, baffle, and piss off so many by just being himself. Even from the grave. #eatlikeandy

andy warhol eating a burger is the only commercial i have cared about and i don't know or care what it was a commercial for

But some didn't really get it.

Looks like @BurgerKing was like "we got this footage of Andy Warhol eating our food, and we don't know what to do with it". #SuperBowl

And some were just confused.

The Venn Diagram of people who like Andy Warhol and people who eat at Burger King has zero overlap.

Other fast-food restaurants, though, were jealous.

Like 90% sure Andy Warhol never had BOJ. And that is sad.

Machado told Adweek the ad was part of a campaign to "elevate the Whopper."

“We’re all huge fans of Andy Warhol,” he said. “I can think of very few people who are as iconic as Andy Warhol. He is someone who leveraged advertising to do art and here we have an opportunity to leverage art to do advertising. We thought that would be beautiful. On top of being creative and different, we believe it truly elevates the Whopper to its iconic stature.”

CORRECTION

Jorgen Leth is a Danish filmmaker. An earlier version of this article, using information provided by Burger King, misidentified him as being Swedish. Thanks to all the helpful Danes who politely emailed us to correct this fact!

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