Who in their right mind approved this ad?
Posted on 04/25/2022 2:15:40 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Text read: "With burgers this good, you'll leave your kids at home. What's the worst that could happen?"
Adverts posted on social media over Mother's Day for a burger company showing a child depicted as Madeleine McCann being carried away by a running man have been rapped by a watchdog for likely 'causing unjustified distress and serious and widespread offence'.
A tweet posted on March 27 this year stated 'burgers for dinner?' Below was an image of missing Madeleine and her mother, Kate, alongside text which stated 'with burgers this good, you'll leave your kids at home. What's the worst that could happen?'
In the background, a man was shown running with a smaller image of Madeleine in his hands, said watchdog the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). Text at the bottom of the post stated 'Happy Mother's Day to all the mums out there'.
In a ruling after complaints, the ASA said it considered the nature of the content to be of such a concern that it asked the relevant social media platforms - Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - to remove the content and suspend the account pending its investigation. The watchdog said it acted after three complaints were received.
The social media posts were by the Otley Burger Company, a mobile burger van based in Otley, West Yorkshire. The Advertising Standards Authority is the UK's independent regulator of advertising across all media.
In response, the Otley Burger Company said that they would not use photos of Kate McCann in that manner again or superimpose images of Madeleine McCann, said the ASA. In a ruling, the watchdog said: "They said that all ads had been removed and would not be appearing again. They also said the image was a meme and there was no product placement, so it was not advertising.
"Meta said they had reviewed the content in the Instagram post and had removed it for violating their policies. They also undertook a broader review of the Instagram account, removed further content and placed restrictions on the account. Twitter said the tweet had been deleted."
The ASA noted that ads must not contain anything that is likely to cause serious or widespread offence, and advertisers must not use a shocking claim or image merely to attract attention. They said: "The disappearance of Madeleine McCann had been a high-profile and long-running media story which remained widely known. We considered the images of them would be instantly recognisable to many people.
"We further considered that any reference to a missing child was likely to be distressing, and that in the context of an ad promoting a burger company the distress caused was unjustified.”
The watchdog added that the text and the image of a man running away with a superimposed photo of Madeleine 'further trivialised the circumstances surrounding Madeleine's disappearance and made light of a distressing news story concerning reports of child abduction and serious crime'.
The Mother's Day timing of the ad 'was likely to have compounded the distress of those who saw the ads, and particularly for those who may have experienced the disappearance of a child'. The ASA said: "For those reasons, we concluded that the ads were likely to cause unjustified distress and serious and widespread offence."
It ruled that the ads must not appear again, adding: "We told The Otley Burger Company to ensure they avoided causing serious and widespread offence and distress."
Madeleine was three when she disappeared during a family holiday in Portugal in May 2007.
Who in their right mind approved this ad?
Our grill is ribbed for your pleasure ????
Otley Burger Co. had to be told this was a cruel and horribly ghoulish idea? This sounds like somebody who would be quickly hired by the
Biden Administration.
Sophisticated humor may be beyond you, the understanding of it.
This is not a sin, nor any part of it.
You are merely simple.
Beloved are the simple.
This is what happens when one’s ad agency is on drugs... and they lack a conscience.
Tone deaf corporate youngsters who have not experienced life yet.
Maybe a standup in a club can get away with appropriateness. But a foodtruck advertising burgers, not so much.
Example: Three weeks after 9/11 Gilbert Gottfried made a joke about 9/11 at a roast. Now, he did get booed, but he didn't get burned in effigy. And after a certain amount of time, standups could tell 9/11 jokes. Although some people probably never appreciated that.
But if a few weeks after 9/11 Burger King aired and saying something like, "Our burgers are so good, you'd go on Flight 93 to get one." People would have been livid, rightly so, and it would have been bad for Burger King.
A standup comedian, who is trying to be edgy can get away with one thing. People trying to sell a product can get away with a lot less.
And child killing is no biggie...they’ve grown up on it being a right and all.
That’s pretty despicable. Kidnapped child, hardy-har-har! Morons.
I had no idea who those people are. Had to look them up. Had to look the hamburger truck people too. Since when do food trucks advertise? Don’t they just go where people are?
Anyway, this is what I found most offensive: “We do vegetarian and gluten free options”
“Quick, I need to find a truck that has gluten free soy burgers. Yeah, I know it has wheels but I’ll drive to them. Hey, call that one with the ‘Have you seen me’ girl on it.”
IOW, see how great we are at censorship? Censorship is good!
That's a very poor comparison to stand Burger King against one Burger van that could use some notoriety even if they utilize a missing child under questionable circumstances from fifteen years ago.
You might notice they were intentionally calling the parents murderers which may be a common belief. It makes me think of an OJ Simpson reference.
This is not sophisticated humor.
It’s trash, created by brainless people.
That they are given, and take money for it is a disgrace.
I’d certainly go BLM and burn this f’er down.
And I’m a Kirk Conservative.
This is comedy-club stuff which doesn’t belong in public.
Fire the idiots that pushed this advertising campaign.
I can’t wait to re-activate my Twitter account to FLAME these aholes for free speech.
WHAT? In what world is this ad OKAY? YOURS, I guess. Not surprised about that. Crawl back under your rock.
Sorry, IN NO WAY is that funny.
I don’t get this. Who has ever heard a watchdog rap anywhere else?
That's watchdawwwg. ;^)
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