Mexico Upset With Burger King
by Big Dog on Apr 14, 2009 at 21:47 General
The folks in Mexico are a bit upset about a Burger King ad that they claim is stereotypical and degrading. There is also uproar because the Mexican in the ad is wrapped in a Mexican flag.
An advertisement for Burger King’s chili-flavored “Texican” burger that has run in Europe shows a small wrestler dressed in a cape resembling a Mexican flag. The wrestler teams up with a lanky American cowboy twice his height to illustrate the cross-border blend of flavors.
“The taste of Texas with a little spicy Mexican,” a narrator’s voice says.
The much-taller cowboy boosts the wrestler up to reach high shelves and clean tall windows, while the Mexican helps the cowboy open a jar.
~snip~
One of the things that most angered Mexican officials was a print edition of the ad showing the wrestler wearing what appear to be a Mexican flag as a cloak.
“We have to tell these people that in Mexico we have a great deal of respect for our flag,” Zermeno said. Breitbart
First of all this is an ad and nothing else. Considering the unrest in Mexico and the collapse the country is experiencing perhaps they should be worrying less about an ad and more about getting things in order.
As for the flag issue, too fricking bad. You have a great deal of respect for your flag, good for you. However, you people have very little respect for the American Flag which Mexicans routinely disrespect and they do so while in this country. They step on it, burn it, hang it upside down and hang the Mexican flag above it. These are all disrespectful acts but I never hear any Mexican Ambassador expressing outrage and telling the Mexicans to stop.
We have a great deal of respect for our flag as well (well, the conservatives do) and we don’t appreciate the way your people treat it.
So before you get all ticked off over an ad think about your own acts.
And if you are really upset don’t eat at Burger King.
Try Taco Bell.
[tip]If you enjoy what you read consider signing up to receive email notification of new posts. There are several options in the sidebar and I am sure you can find one that suits you. If you prefer, consider adding this site to your favorite feed reader. If you receive emails and wish to stop them follow the instructions included in the email.[/tip]
Tags: ad, burger king, Flag, Mexico, outrage
As the son of a journalist and ad man, I was taught to be not only tasteful, but accurate in advertising. In his later years, after he had formed an agency to recruit journalism students for job placement after graduation, he tried to instill these ethics in his proteges. As we have seen, probably not all of them took the lessons to heart.
This is part of what’s wrong with the world today- everybody takes something innocuous, and rather funny, and turns it into a “deadly” insult.
Its an Advertisement, for God’s sake- it’s NOT a geo- political statement, and while it may be in bad taste, so are 90% of ads today. My father thought that today’s crop of advertisers pretty much just “mailed it in”, rather than use their brainpower to make a good advertisement, they just went with what was easy and fast.
That being said, wasn’t there an ad for Absolut vodka, that portrayed the American Southwest as belonging to Mexico? Are we still outraged over this? It’s an ad, that is all.
As Dog said, you don’t like it, eat somewhere else. Vote with your taste buds if you wish, but today’s ad is tomorrow’s forgotten little nothing.
Good points. Mexico has real problems they should worry about. Is Burger King going around Tijuana or Nuevo Laredo and kidnapping, shooting, and even beheading people? No those are Mexicans doing that.
I support BK’s right to offend Mexicans 100%. !Viva Burger King!
Lyn, If I gave the impression I want to offend Mexicans,I am sorry- that was not my intent- It just seems that people get upset over the most trivial of things, things we used to laugh at- Plumber jokes, Polish jokes, Rabbi and Preacher jokes, etc. Now everybody is as twitchy as a long tailed cat in a room full of rockers. All I meant was that the issue was trivial, and it was in Europe- I think Mexico has bigger problems than their advertising image in Europe, when over 6,000 of its citizens have dies from gunfire along the border.
I do not think BK meant any harm but as the son of an Adman, I believe the agency was tone- deaf when it comes to ethnicity sensitivity”. That said, the Mexicans have always been twitchy when it comes to imagined slights- heck they have endured real ones for a long time as well.