Burger King ad in Singapore comes under fire
Excerpts from blog Taragana:
Mark Duffy, a blogger and an advertising copywriter at a major New York City firm, said that the advertisement was among the “worst” he had ever seen in more than 17 years of his experience.
“I’ve seen a lot of sexual innuendo ads and this is about the worst, especially for something as mainstream as Burger King. I was a little repulsed by it. It’s really misogynistic to women and it’s also unappetizing,” said Duffy.
Duffy said that the woman’s face in the advertisement appeared to have been retouched to make it look like a doll, and that the American cheese on the sandwich seemed a little too white.
“It’s outlandish. They obviously didn’t hire a top-notch food photographer,” he said.
Duffy, who called on Burger King to terminate the ad, said: “It’s really distasteful on the appetite level and on the social level. The ad pretty much speaks for itself. How much more do they have to spell it out for you?”
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Lauren Kuziner, a spokeswoman for Burger King, said that the campaign was produced by a local Singaporean agency, and not by the company’s U.S. advertising firm, Crispin Porter plus Bogusky.
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Read the full article here.
Also: Singapore finds burger ad a “mouthful”
hi KopitiamApek,
hey, guess what? we’re on the same page on this issue! :)
////not only men’s mag
Female and Her World mag
every issue the word “sex” is on the cover////
hmmm, looks like women these days are equal with men on that… :P
////In the real world , there is only one place, (other than washrooms), where men and women are segregated. Prisons.////
hahaa, you have a good sense of humour. ;)
You know, reading this thread made me cringe. There’s only so much second-hand embarrassment one can handle before imploding, or failing that, getting really pissed off.
1. Should this agency be lauded for pushing the boundaries? I doubt it. Sexual innuendo has been used in Singapore before, just not in this crude manner.
2. Any publicity is good publicity – what a fallacy.
3. This ad is only dirty to dirty minds? Well, I don’t have a particularly dirty mind but I know sexual suggestion when I see it. How about – this ad is only non-sexual to ignorant, naive minds. All the same, it’s certainly not “filthy porn” – it’s an ambiguous image nonetheless presented with a particular intention.
4. This ad cannot possibly be compared to PETA’s photographs of near-naked celebrities. Nudity does not equate to sexual explicitness – you need to consider their posturing. It’s one thing to place a scantily-clad woman on a beer ad, versus a scantily-clad woman with a phallic object angled towards her crotch.
5. Neither can it be likened to sex-centric articles in magazines! Sex is an important part of human lifestyles and it’s natural to want to read about it, especially in magazines targeted specifically at one gender. I’m not against this ad because I think oral sex is morally reprehensible in any way. Again, it’s all about context. Sex-discourse is one thing; gratuitously using sex to sell a food product is another.
6. What’s with the racism? I hate this ad too (it’s quite clearly a terrible ad), I’m willing to engage in debate about it, and I’m not American.
I don’t know if I’d go so far as to remove this ad entirely, because I fear it’ll be done for the wrong reasons, with unpleasant repercussions for the advertising industry as a whole. Heavily Implied sexuality? The potential corruption of young minds? Whatever. Point is, it’s a tasteless, witless cop-out that disrespects women *unnecessarily* (the operative term), and won’t be winning awards anytime soon.
hi Des,
////5. Neither can it be likened to sex-centric articles in magazines!…. Again, it’s all about context. Sex-discourse is one thing; gratuitously using sex to sell a food product is another.////
i know my point was “a little” way off the mark.
-.-”
////4. This ad cannot possibly be compared to PETA’s photographs of near-naked celebrities. Nudity does not equate to sexual explicitness – you need to consider their posturing. It’s one thing to place a scantily-clad woman on a beer ad, versus a scantily-clad woman with a phallic object angled towards her crotch.
Whatever. Point is, it’s a tasteless, witless cop-out that disrespects women *unnecessarily* (the operative term), and won’t be winning awards anytime soon.////
i agree with your points totally!! ;)
I agree with Des, though I don’t think she should be so harsh towards the other commenters on this thread because they are simply misguided, and need to be benevolently corrected and disabused of their retardedness.
1. This advertisement is seen as offensive NOT BECAUSE OF THE SEX. Sex is used all the time to sell products, and while it is often controversial, it is not always deemed as offensive at this BK ad. Take Carls’ Jr, BK’s close competitor and probably its “inspiration”. It uses sex to sell its burgers, with slogans such as “some like it long but most like it thick”. To the average informed adult this is a clear analogue to a man’s penis. That means the patty is a metaphor for the penis. It is naughty, rude, even lewd and some might say tasteless, but it does not offend particular groups the way this BK ad does. Why is that? Let us look beneath the surface, as not all sexual themes are the same.
2. The BK ad is a crude reference to oral sex, as we all know. As in the Carls’ ad the burger is equated with the phallus. Yes, the Carls’ ad also reflects a phallocentric culture, but while it is more open to interpretation, the BK ad takes it one step further by implicating a woman. A comically, stereotypically pornographic woman with blunt blonde wig and lurid red mouth is depicted simulating fellatio on the phallic burger. This puts her in a position of SUBSERVIENCE to the phallus. Let us examine why it makes this impression:
3. “Wait a minute! A woman giving oral sex to a man is not subservience, it is an act of LOVE! And men give oral sex to women too, so they are even! There is equality for both sexes so women should stop complaining!”
This would be many people’s automatic response to the previous point, but it isn’t very clever. Advertising works by playing on known symbols, meanings and associations. The margin for error and room for interpretation is part of the art of advertising, but there is no denying that when and advertiser uses a particular image, it is DELIBERATE and MEANINGFUL. Certainly, giving oral sex can be a genuine expression of love between two (or more) people. However, the way this ad portrays oral sex explicitly refers to an established legacy of pornography. The woman in the advertisement is dressed in a way that recalls the stereotypical porn star: blonde wig and willing wet mouth. Such films have been argued to be degrading to women because:
i. the man’s pleasure matters more than the woman’s. it is obvious that many porn films are directed for men and by men because the average woman would not derive personal enjoyment from giving a man oral sex. it’s a favour, not Deepthroat.
ii. the woman is often a caricature of femininity, something that panders to men’s fantasies. the woman is often vapid and stupid and without a personality. they tend to look a certain way, and the woman in the BK ad coincidentally looks that way. Or COULD be interpreted to.
iii. when a woman gives a man oral sex in a pornographic film, it is not usually portrayed as an act of love, so much as the man’s conquest in getting a woman to satisfy him.
4. “You know all this because you watched PORN! This proves that you have a dirty sick mind and that is why you think the ad is negative. If you were more ‘clean’ you wouldn’t take so much offence!”
Thus go the protests of people like ABC:
22) ABC on July 3rd, 2009 12.22 pm
It mean dirty if ur mind is corrupted, for niave or non-creative ppl it mean another normal advertisement. [sic]
Well ABC, as I mentioned, advertisements work precisely by playing on associations an symbols, with leeway for interpretation. A child, indeed, would not understand it. However, ABC’s self-righteous disapproval of people who find this ad offensive is not warranted. The pornographic references are NOT obscure, and many adults would understand it immediately. Advertising is an industry where every little detail is deliberately placed, do you think that the advertisers would have missed this? This is a MASS MARKET advertisement, and they would not have chosen this pornographic-reference if it were esoteric. The fact is, it is not. You don’t have to watch porn to understand its culture, because it is referenced a lot in mainstream culture. Furthermore, ABC’s moral indignation is also unfounded because being clean cut does not mean being ignorant. You don’t have to use the F word to understand what it is when you hear it, and condemn its use. To illustrate, ABC’s point is like saying, “people who complain about the frequent use of bad words on TV are dirty minded because if they were really innocent and naive those words would just be meaningless sounds.”
That is actually true, but unfortunately, most people DO know what those words are. Therefore it is the onus of the users of those words to be careful about what they are communicating and what people understand by it.
Sex sells.
And the advertising world knows that and makes no apologies for milking it to the max.
It is debatable if this ad agency is indeed pushing the boundaries, but like all ads that use sex to sell, the agencies knows that with each push, each gentle repetitive stroke of the airing of the ad, it’s suggestive motives penetrates the subliminal mind of the consumer, arousing the strong irresistible desire to buy the item advertised (whether needed or not), and the ad campaign finally achieved its objective, when the consumer reached climax in his buying decision (wise or flawed) and ejaculate his cash from his wallet into the cash register.
Ka-ching !!!
KopitiamApek: And your point is? The process you just painstakingly described applies to every ad; not just those with sex in them.
57) Des
Agree. You are correct that every ad uses this process.
My point?
Just jesting and poking fun at the industry and we comsumers.
Apologies if it was bad taste to you.
The fact that you are aware makes you a consumer that is not easily swayed by the clever ads and their sometimes insedious ways to push their sales.
Our ever materialistic lifestyle has elevated consumerism and advertising into almost an artform, and ads are using indirect messages to sell their wares, sometimes ingenious and refreshing, sometimes just blantanly crude, as in this BK fiasco.
Another crude ad, which was taken off as fast as in came on the double deckers buses was that with the huge letters FCUK.
And BTW, the PETA’s photographs of near-naked celebrities is also in the same line of using sex to sell a message.
And other times, the link is so remote, it looks desperate. Like the Samsung handphones ads.
The ad with everyone walking around on big inflated balls, for the umpteenth time I watched, I still cannot see the association.
ingenious and refreshing- The H1N1 campaign with the poster of the hideous creatures making up the shape of a human hand is creative and gets the message across quite well.
Advertising has such a profound effect on less than strong minded consumers, which we all are at certain times of the day/week/year and will be succumb to the subliminal messages.
The movie “Thank you for smoking” is a good depiction of the ills of this trade when taken to the extreme.
McDonald’s is still targeting their junk food at kids, ensuring the kids acquires the taste of these junk food at an early age. And now riding the health bandwagon,they are now smoking us further by their “open kitchen” policy, to give an impression that the food is actually healthy.
42) high council on July 11th, 2009 12.36 am
haven’t you heard? oral sex (between men and women) IS ok in singapore…parliament changed the law a while back already.
How is the subliminal portrayal of oral sex misogynistic?
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