The SpongeBob SquarePants Burger King Inflatable was created in 2004 by a company called Inflatable Images for a Burger King promotion for The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.
History[]
This promotional Burger King stunt is one of the most infamous due to its history. On November 11, 2004, when The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie promotion started at Burger King, around 4,700 locations in the United States put up this gigantic 9-foot inflatable of SpongeBob. At first, everything seemed to be going fine, until about a month into the promotion when several Burger King locations started to report that their SpongeBob inflatable was missing. This started the phenomenon known as "Spongenappings." This resulted in people who had supposedly stolen these inflatables to sell them on eBay for a large amount of money or to leave ransom notes. Several news outlets and Burger King locations around the United States said that if anyone had found their inflatable SpongeBob somewhere or know potentially know who stole the balloon, they would give that person "Burger Bucks" which was good for a year's supply of original Whopper sandwiches.
These inflatables were found in the strangest of places. These locations included apartment complexes, the middle of the woods, and even house fires. All of the formerly stolen SpongeBob inflatables were either given back to a Burger King location or were damaged beyond repair and were trashed. Knowing all of this, there are still people today who own these inflatables legally from Burger King distributors or illegally from the rooftops of the restaurant. People have either kept them as a collectors item or have sold them for cash.
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie marketing campaign—SpongeBob SquarePants Burger King Inflatable, "Pants-Casso," "Watch Me," "Watch," SpongeBob SquarePants cereal, SpongeBob SquarePants Pop-Tarts, SpongeBob SquarePants Cheez-Its, "New Home," The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (3D Game), The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (magazine), The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie 300, SpongeBob SquarePants Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon, etc.—won the 2005 "Multi-partner Promotion - three or more partners (No budgetary parameters)"[1] Bronze REGGIE Award.[2][3]
References[]
- ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20050322192709/http://www.pmalink.org/awards/reggie2005/index.asp?interface=external&action=entry&screen=view&popup=1&categoryID=628
- ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20060211051313/http://www.pmalink.org/awards/reggie2005/finalistspublic/winners05.asp
- ^ https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Nk18w0q_lMIJ:https://p2pi.com/2005-pma-reggie-award-winners
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