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GREAT BRITAIN |
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This advert for Burger King, titled “Manthem”, was the subject of complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority in November 2006, most prominently from the food group Sustain. The apparent association made in the advert between consumption of the Double Whopper burger and authentic “manliness” was at the centre of the complaint from Sustain’s “Children’s Food Campaign”.
"One in three children is now obese or overweight.” said the campaign’s coordinator, Richard Watts. “Given this epidemic of childhood obesity, the last thing the country needs is for teenagers to be told it is ‘manly’ for them to eat these unhealthy burgers. Burger King’s response to the obesity crisis seems to be to bury its head in the sand and produce larger and larger burgers.”
“This kind of advert shows the food industry cannot be trusted to regulate itself. If the Government is serious about defusing the health timebomb of obesity, they need to end TV adverts for this kind of product before the 9pm watershed."
Complaints were also made to the ASA about the alleged sexism of the commercial. Burger King, however, defended “Manthem”, saying, “Customer research has identified there are plenty of men who enjoy indulging in a quality burger.”
A formal investigation by the ASA cleared the advert of the above charges but upheld a complaint that the product shown in the ad was larger than an actual Double Whopper available to buy at Burger King. The ASA ruled that the the ad "must not be shown again in (its current) form until the misleading impression of the size and composition of the product (is) corrected."
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