'Righteous burger dude' smites the unsustainable in cartoon campaign

Aussie burger chain Grill'd has launched its first major brand campaign, which harkens back to 1970s-style cartoons with a series of tales involving a hamburger-shaped hero. But this being 2021, the central character takes on the unsustainable practices of rival restaurants.

The campaign, by Accenture Interactive's The Monkeys, launched Saturday during the AFL Grand Final and includes broadcast TV, BVOD, radio, online, and social.

The ads refer to the protagonist as a "righteous burger guy". In the three videos shown here, he takes on an oddly familiar clown who tempts kids with plastic toys, a pilot dumping pesticides on crops, and an evil industrialist who injects cows with growth hormones.

Needless to say, all the villains get their just desserts in the end, especially the evil industrialist.

It's interesting to note that just last week, McDonald's announced it would be phasing out plastic toys from its Happy Meals, replacing them with toys made from corn and other less damaging materials.

Ad Nut appreciates the look of the films, which is at once faithful to the old Saturday-morning fare the campaign is meant to allude to, but also more effective—on a storytelling level—than those clunky old shows ever were. The music—lyrics and the vocal performances—is especially great.  

Ad Nut will leave it to experts to judge whether Grill'd is on solid ground touting its environmental goodness. But the company says that in the past 12 months, it has recycled over 660,000 litres of cooking oil to create biodiesel, uses packaging made from cardboard and paper sourced from sustainable forests; and has converted 62 of its 150 restaurants to green power so far.

CREDITS

Client: Grill’d
Founder and Managing Director: Simon Crowe
CEO: Adam Stapleton
Marketing Director: Kerrie Wade
Head of Brand: Grace Eadie

Agency: The Monkeys, part of Accenture Interactive
Chief Executive Officer, Melbourne: Paul McMillan
Chief Creative Officer, Melbourne: Ant Keogh
Creative Director: Hugh Gurney
Creative Director: Joe Sibley
Group Account Director: Sophie Gosper
Account Director: Tom Patterson
Account Manager: Isaac Montebello
Chief Strategy Officer, Melbourne: Mike Derepas
Head of Production: Romanca Mundrea
Senior Producer: Jo Alach
Senior Craft Designer: Raph Tamkalis
Senior Designer: Chris Thompson

Media: PMG
Founder & Planning Director: Dianne Richardson
Account Director: Sam Waldren

Production Company: Unlisted
Executive Producer: Katie Mackin
Producer: Su Mei Chia

Animation: WIZZ
Director: Gary Levesque
Producer: Claire Madigan

Songwriter: Hugh Sibley
Music Production: Electric Dreams
Shred-lord: Tom Rouch
Music EP: Leyla Varela

Sound Design: Squeak E. Clean Studios
Head Sound Designer: Paul Le Couteur
EP: Ceri Davis

Photography: Adrian Lander

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