brands need streamers but can’t tolerate what they really are
Xokas has been in the eye of the hurricane for more than a week for his words about Ester Expósito. But the video that ended with his hamburger at Burger King talks about something else: about money, class and the erratic attempts of big brands to reach the youth audience by signing role models born on the Internet who are not exactly impeccable. What has happened? Burger King Spain canceled on Thursday its collaboration with Joaquín Domínguez, known as El Xokas, within the Grand King campaign in which four influencers They promote a different menu, and with their choices, customers choose who the winner is. The brand removed from its website and application the Cheese Bacon Classic menu, associated with the content creator. Hours later, via an Instagram storythe company confirmed the breakup and assured that the streamer’s statements “in no way represent the values that we defend as a brand.” Fame is sought. Xokas was chosen for this campaign because he was, of the four creators signed (with him were Marta Díaz, Peldanyos and Marina Rivers), the one with the greatest reach: he became the streamer Spanish with the most subscribers on Twitch and has had some milestones on the platform, such as when in 2022 it had one of the highest audience peaks in its history, with 1.2 million viewers in the final of a recreation of the Squid Game in ‘Minecraft’. That explains why Burger King chose him and why his departure from the campaign has had so much echo. The version that has circulated these days places the origin of the conflict in El Xokas’ comments about Ester Expósito, and it is true that they were the triggers of the controversy, but not its complete cause. The origin of the controversy. The first controversial comments came more than a week before the dismissal: while talking about Mbappé, the actress’s partner, El Xokas reacted to a phrase that she had uttered on the podcast La Pija and La Quinqui“I wouldn’t talk to Nazis.” From there he said that it was not worth being with such an attractive woman if he maintained that political thought and finished by saying that “I would rather be with a 6 than with someone like Expósito.” The reaction was immediate: figures like Irene Montero or Javier Bardem publicly criticized the streamer. Burger King, however, did not move the menu from the website in those days. The icing. What did make the company rethink its deal with El Xokas was another video, later and not directly related to Expósito. In a live interview, after being asked in a mocking tone if he had tickets for the soccer World Cup final, El Burger King became an argument for humiliation. The boycott pressure escalated to Congress, where Compromís spokesperson, Águeda Micó, demanded explanations. It’s not the first time. Spain already had a comparable precedent. In 2018, Cuétara canceled his Choco Flakes cereal campaign with Cabronazi, a meme account that had dressed his mascot, in less than 24 hours after a wave of criticism. like a pink version of Hitler. The company apologized and stopped marketing the limited edition, claiming that it had miscalculated the impact of a collaboration designed with “a casual tone”. The Xokas shares a pattern with cases where the problem was outside the campaign: Adidas, for example, broke its agreement with Kanye West in 2022 after a series of anti-Semitic comments, a decision that It cost the artist close to 250 million dollars. Five years earlier, Disney had broken off its relationship with YouTuber PewDiePie, then the creator with the most subscribers in the world, after one of his videos will display a poster with an anti-Semitic message. The past returns. Another pattern, different but also frequent: controversial and old content that resurfaces and dynamites a recently signed collaboration. Doritos named Samantha Hudson an ambassador and fired her 48 hours later, when Tweets that she had published in 2015 went viralonly fifteen years old. Something similar happened to YouTuber Shane Dawson in 2020: when old videos of his with racist jokes and content that sexualized minors resurfaced, Morphe withdrawn from sale the makeup line she had launched with him, Conspiracy. The brand discovered, at the same time as the public, that the history of the person it had signed was longer and more problematic than it believed. What this tells us. Each of these cases has its peculiarities, but a common structure: brands need what only an internet creator can give them, proximity to young audiences who no longer watch television. But that access sometimes comes without a script or editorial control. Hiring an actor for an advertisement is buying a closed message, but hiring a creator is buying a person, not just their image: with their history, their unfiltered live performance and the controversial opinions they carry. In his day we already have how food brands have been betting for years on this access to influencers despite the risk and the surveillance of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, but this controversy, above all, reveals how the need for traditional brands that have built their wealth and the prestige of their brand through offline It has to adapt to new times, new languages and, above all, more extreme personalities. At the moment, it is the law of the jungle: the creator with the most followers wins the contracts, but it does not guarantee a campaign free of controversy. Another very different question is to what extent this risk is not implicit in the contract they sign, because in these times some noise in any direction is a real treasure. In Xataka | The controversy of Lola Lolita and the 4,000 euro bag reveals something else: influencers have stopped having normal lives
