Column:

Burger Nation antidotes to be available to all

When scientists cure cancer, fast food solves the marketing problem.

By Charles Austin

Published March 16, 2009

While the so-called doctors and scientists over in their fancy buildings with their fancy white coats have been slaving day and night for decades to cure devastating ailments, such as cancer and AIDS, I've been one step ahead of them, working on the next big project: how to market these indispensable cures.

To be consumer-friendly, it's only logical to make the cures available in doses that are not only painless, but also enjoyable. For this reason, I've started my own fast food chain, Burger Nation.

Burger Nation is the Taj Mahal of fast food joints. We recently signed a cross-promotional deal with leading scientists the world over, which gives us exclusive rights to distribute any and all cures they discover in the future. Once these life-saving cures are in our hands, we'll be ready to pass them right along to the consumer.

Our customers will get their twice-daily antidotes as part of a mouth-melting taste sensation we like to call the Panacea Burger. The vaccines will be injected into a half-pound of never-frozen, juicy pure ground beef, nestled between two fluffy sesame seed buns piled high with lettuce, tomato, mayo, pickles and ranch, all slathered with our special southwestern chipotle barbecue sauce.

Tragically, millions of people suffer from these diseases, so the demand will be high. Even a bumbling, vegetable-eating sissy knows what this means: supplies will have to be limited. For this reason, these tasty miracle burgers will only be available three months out of the year, from February through April.

Now, consumers will love the great taste of our monstrous flame-broiled burgers, piled high with veggies, sauces and sodium, but some skeptics out there might buy only two per day, in keeping with the doctor-recommended daily dosage. But the last time we checked, this is America, and we like our burgers to be as plentiful as our baseball caps, mud flaps and star spangled flags. So here's what we'll do for our valued consumers. For every savory, scrumptious Panacea Burger ordered at the low, low retail price of $45 apiece, we'll stamp a Burger Nation Extreme Valued Customer card. For every 10 stamps, we'll throw in an extra burger for just $34.99.

When this special limited-time offer comes to a close, our consumers will be ready to shave off those extra pounds just in time for the summer. And believe us, they're going to need the exercise. Our super-succulent burgers, seasoned and grilled to perfection, pack in 900 calories apiece -- and that's just the patty.

For the convenience of our consumers, we've set up cross-promotions with some of the biggest gym chains in the country. When customers stop by select gyms between the months of May and January, they can earn valuable points towards Burger Nation discounts they won't want to miss.

But don't spend too much time on that treadmill. Once February rolls around, customers will want to flock to the nearest Burger Nation and sink their chompers into our oven-baked sesame buns, flavorful patties and mile-high toppings. Because the dosage in three months of Panacea Burgers is only enough to knock the diseases into remission for the remainder of the year, not enjoying one of our irresistible, mouthwatering burgers might be fatal.

At Burger Nation, we think curing cancer and AIDS is awesome. That's why we believe our customers have a right to deliciousness as well as good health. If Burger Nation wrote the Constitution, these rights would be government-mandated. But until we establish a true nation of our own, we'll have to better the world the only way we know how: one mouthwatering burger at a time.