The Snoop Dogg Burger King Employee Training Video You Had No Idea Existed

If you've ever been a fast food employee, you're probably familiar with how the training videos are anything but entertaining. These videos typically present information to new hires in the most straightforward way possible, with the main goal of equipping them with the necessary skills to quickly get to work. However, in 2016, Burger King broke the mold by taking a unique approach to its training content, featuring none other than Snoop Dogg in a starring role for one of its videos.

The original video is currently set to private, perhaps because it was an internal video meant for employees only, however people were quick to repost it on YouTube for everyone else to see. In this video, Snoop Dogg is seen in a Burger King kitchen, discussing Grilled Dogs, a menu item the fast food chain introduced in 2016, as employees demonstrate how to prepare them. Burger King planned to launch Grilled Dogs on February 23 that year, but several days before, Snoop Dogg tweeted out a link to the now-deleted training video along with the caption, "Where my grilled dogs at??" garnering lots of excited comments.

Since training videos don't normally feature celebrities, it might seem random for Snoop Dogg to appear in one. But according to Code and Theory, the company that produced the video, Burger King wanted to create a more engaging video for employees. "It was an untraditional approach, but employees are one of a brand's most valuable assets, and they are there in front of you," the company said in a statement (via Entrepreneur).

Some sources including Consumerist, The Rail, and USA Today speculate that it was about more than just creating something entertaining for employees to watch — that it was really an ad, and Burger King is the one who leaked the video to the public. If this speculation holds true, then Snoop Dogg's appearance was just another celebrity endorsement in a Burger King commercial.

Celebrity endorsements are something Burger King does all the time. For example, in 2021, Burger King highlighted its commitment to using "real" ingredients by using rapper Nelly's real name, Cornell Haynes Jr., in promotions for the Keep It Real Meals. The global burger chain has also invested in Super Bowl food commercials, with one featuring old footage of the late Andy Warhol eating a Burger King burger. So using Snoop Dogg's fame to promote Grilled Dogs seems consistent with the company's marketing strategies.

It's definitely possible that Burger King intentionally staged a leaked employee training video for promotional purposes, after all, it makes sense that the company would want to capitalize on the buzz that a celebrity endorsement can generate. However, multiple employees say that the video really was included in their training. 

"As an ex [Burger King] employee when this came out [I] can 100 percent confirm this was shown in [Burger King] restaurants as a training module on [BK University] the [Burger King] training program," one commenter wrote on YouTube. This sentiment was echoed by many others, and Alex Macedo, president of Burger King North America, confirmed to the New York Times that the video was indeed utilized to train employees.

However, as other self-identified employees pointed out in the YouTube comments, Snoop Dogg's video is no longer shown to new hires. Unfortunately, the product it was associated with, Grilled Dogs, is no longer on the menu. Despite a nationwide launch following a successful test run in select cities, Grilled Dogs eventually joined Burger King's other discontinued items — even with Snoop Dogg's endorsement.