The Force Responds to Burger King's Copy-Cat Marketing Campaign

For a dollar, who do you like better: Rihanna or Rashida Jones? Sounds random, but this might be one of the questions Billy Eichner runs up to you and asks on the streets of the New York City. Who's Billy Eichner? Shame, shame, shame for not knowing the comedic genius of Billy on the Street. Starting on Funny or Die, Billy on Street, now a half an hour show on Fuse, is creator Billy Eichner's take on the American comedy game show. The premise is simple, Billy hits the streets of NYC asking questions about pop culture with games like "Quizzed in the Face" and "For a Dollar". Ok, maybe it's too polite to say that her asks the questions, really he yells, screams and shouts them. If you aren't familiar with Billy on the Street, check out this hilarious segment below.

While Billy may not be mainstream quite yet, his star is certainly rising. Along with Seth Meyers, Billy filmed a version of his popular "For a Dollar" segment for The Emmy's:

 

Plus he's recently been featured on David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and has an arc on NBC's hit show Parks and Recreation. Not to mention, he's good for a laugh with a follow on Twitter or Facebook. So with his name becoming more common, it's no surprise that companies would want to hitch themselves to Billy's coattails.

The first company to do so is Burger King, sort of. In their quest to take down McDonalds as the top fast food chain, Burger King has already gone after McDonalds Big Mac with it's "Big Mac look alike" the Big King. Now turning their focus to chicken nuggets, Burger King released with the campaign below highlighting the low cost of their chicken nuggets:

Did something seem off to you? Yes, it probably did. And why? It's because Burger King stole modeled the commercial off of Billy on the Street, minus Billy Eichner. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? Not to Billy Eichner or his fans. Burger King's campaign has caused an uproar on Twitter with even a few tweets from Billy himself. This is his first response to the campaign, some of his latter tweets get a little more vulgar (but hilarious):

Hey @BurgerKing-thanks for stealing my act for ur new commercial!! Except its not as funny & everyone knows u stole it. GET YOUR OWN IDEAS.

— billy eichner (@billyeichner) October 13, 2014

Unfortunately for Burger King, Billy also has some high profile fans who have also weighed in their misstep:

Hey @burgerking, you were stupid if you think hiring some random actor to rip off @billyeichner was going to work. I WAS AVAILABLE!!!
— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) October 13, 2014

Yo @BurgerKing, stop stealing from the hilarious @billyeichner and stick to what you're good at: giving me diarrhea.
— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) October 13, 2014

And then probably the absolute worst thing that could have happened to Burger King happened;  McDonalds got involved:

As annoying as it is to have Burger King rip me off, your tweets are incredible. I have the BEST fans on the planet!!! See u at McDonalds!
— billy eichner (@billyeichner) October 13, 2014

@billyeichner Can’t wait to see you! Oh, and bring Elena!
— McDonald's (@McDonalds) October 13, 2014

 So far Burger King has not responded to the controversy or the call to kill the copy-cat campaign. Hopefully there are two lesson learned for Burger King here, the first being that if you want to tap into someone's star power, use that person, not an imitation. The second, if you copy someones' work people are going to notice, you won't get away with it. Especially in the today's age of social media Burger King should know that Twitter is... well I'm going to let Billy say it - because he says is best: