“Women Belong In The Kitchen!” Burger King Flame Grilled For Tone Deaf Ad
A controversial headline designed to carry a positive message has exploded in Burger King’s face and set social media alight.
Yesterday – which also happened to be International Women’s Day – the burger giant ran a full-page ad in The New York Times with the headline “Women Belong in the Kitchen”.
However, it wasn’t as sexist as it sounds. The ad’s actual intention was far more noble and was promoting the company’s new scholarship program that aims to get more women into cheffing as a career.
The fine print to the ad, developed by its creative agency Miami David, read: “Only 24 per cent of chef positions in America are occupied by women. Want to talk head chefs? the number drops to fewer than seven per cent.”
If that wasn’t bad enough, when tweeted out on social, only the headline “women belong in the kitchen” got posted.
To its credit, the brand didn’t delete the tweet – despite being called out by rival KFC – and, instead, offered a hasty explanation.
The re-tweet has since generated 500,000 likes and people are now arguing if people are agreeing with the sexist sentiment or the more noble message it was intended.
Others argued the chain was deliberately using a sexist clickbait message to drive more social traffic.
One person tweeted: “The difference in likes between the first and the second tweet scares me.”
Another added: “Imagine if they ran out of 5G before they could send that second tweet, LOL.”
“Someone in the marketing department doesn’t understand Twitter very well,” added another.
Burger King responded that it would be foolish to delete a tweet “that’s drawing attention to a huge lack of female representation in our industry, we thought you’d be on board with this as well?”
In a follow-up statement, a company spokesperson said: “We are committed to helping women break through a male-dominated culinary culture in the world’s fine dining restaurants — and sometimes that requires drawing attention to the problem we’re trying to help fix.
“Our headline today was intentionally designed to draw attention to the unacceptable fact that only seven percent of head chefs in the U.S. are women. We understand that some are only reading the headline without our explanation, but we’re sure that when people read the entirety of our commitment, they will share our belief in this important opportunity.”
Please login with linkedin to comment
Burger KingLatest News
Carnival Cruise Lines Want Aussies To Find Their ‘Fun Type’ This Summer
You probably know your star sign, personality type and even your blood type. Maybe you’ve previously felt some type of way. But do you know your ‘Fun Type’? Carnival Cruise Line has today unveiled its latest campaign, helping Aussies to discover what type of fun they’re really into. The new ‘Fun Type’ questionnaire – developed […]
SMI Data: Ad Spends Up 2.7% In October
Australia’s media market has highlighted the strength of current underlying ad demand by reporting a 2.7 per cent increase in October ad spend despite a large decline in TV bookings due to the move of the AFL and NRL finals to last October and ongoing COVID restrictions. The result is also 1.6 per cent above […]
Unruly Launches Content Level Targeting That Enhances Publishers’ CTV and Video Inventory
Programmatic video advertising platform Unruly has introduced content level targeting that standardises attributes across genre and rating segments enabling scaled buying on premium video content. Today Unruly announced the introduction of its content level inventory that segments inventory based on publisher bidstream attributes that mirror linear TV buys, such as genre and rating. The solution […]
Golden Circle Wants Aussies To ‘SmilePay’ This Summer
Golden Circle is bringing a splash of sunshine to the Australian Summer with the launch of an innovative, SmilePay vending machine. The machine was created by 72andSunny, and software development company, Enabled 2 GO Technologies. It uses existing smile recognition software to recognise an Aussie smile and in return release a complimentary ice-gold Golden Circle fruit drink […]
Three Tips For Bringing Your Brand’s Decarbonisation Strategy To Life
In this guest post, Rosanna Iacono (pictured below), managing partner and advisor at The Growth Activists, offers three top tips to ensure your brand is on brand when it comes to climate… After ranking last for climate policy among more than 60 nations, the Australian government’s climate change performance was widely slammed at the recent […]
New Report Says Managers Are Ignoring Employee Mental Health
Almost half (49 per cent) of Australia’s marketing, media, and communications employees feel their managers are showing little, if any, concern for their mental wellbeing, a new report has found. The report – conducted on behalf of the Australian College of Applied Professions in October 2021 – surveyed 1000 nationally represented workers and found some […]
iD Collective Snags Goodman Fielder
Full-service communications agency, iD Collective, has been appointed by Goodman Fielder to develop and implement a strategic communications plan for Wonder Australia. The agency will be focusing on a series of new, sustainable initiatives that are helping Wonder turn waste into wonderful. iD Collective managed all aspects of the PR campaign spanning press office activity, […]
Digital Lives of Australians: Cyber Security Fears Keeping People Offline
The internet is invaluable but cyber security fears are keeping Australians offline. According to new research released today by the .au Domain Administration (auDA), almost 90 per cent of Australians say the Internet has a positive impact on their lives. Moreover, almost all small businesses (98 per cent) depend on the Internet as an invaluable […]
MediaCom Names Mike Worden As Sydney MD & Adele Burke As GM
The Rag And Famish's house chardonnay taking a real hit today as MediaCom staff celebrate new appointees.
Kate Langbroek Shares Christmas Cracker Gags To Promote Melbourne’s Chapel Street Precinct
Who doesn't love to pull a cracker at Christmas? Thirty bucks for a bad gag and an ill-fitting, highly flammable hat.
Wednesday TV Wrap: Hard Quiz Wins Entertainment, But Nine Wins The Night!
Hard Quiz proves viewers love a bit of public humiliation. Had MAFS and The Bachelor not proven it long ago.
Optus Unveils Charitable Donate Your Device Program
Optus has announced Donate Your Device which invites everyone to donate unused or old smart phones to the people who need it most. Having constant on demand access to a smart phone is part and parcel for so many people’s daily lives. However sadly, many Australians are being technologically left behind without a smart phone […]
Optimizely to Acquire Marketing Orchestration Platform Welcome
Optimizely will advance its digital experience leadership, empowering marketers to plan, create, deliver and optimise campaigns in a single end-to-end solution. Today, leading digital experience platform (DXP) provider, Optimizely, announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Welcome. Welcome brings the best capabilities of content marketing platforms (CMP), marketing resource management (MRM), and […]
Dettol Wins Cartology Campaign Of The Year For “Bat. Bowl. Dettol.”
Let's face it, the global pandemic has been an unequivocal disaster. Not so for Dettol's national brand manager.
Facebook’s Creepy Algorithms Roasted In Riotous Spoof Starring Mark Zuckerberg As An Elf!
B&T's pretty sure Mark Zuckerberg has a sense of humour. If not, look forward to our retraction and apology tomorrow.
Spotify Wrap Reveals Taylor Swift Was Australia’s Most Streamed Artist Of The Year
We adore a bit of Tay-Tay in the B&T office. We particularly like to blast underperforming staff with 'Shake it Off'.
Butterfly Foundation Chooses Edelman As New Comms Agency
It's always great to have a client doing good on the books. Evil is fine too, yet don't tend to get a press release.
Snapchat Partners With The Great Barrier Reef Foundation
Bleaching is absolutely fine for teeth, hair and anuses, less so for the Great Barrier Reef.
WARC Ranks Special Australia & New Zealand In The World’s Top 20 Creative Agencies
Special bosses down Harvey Norman for a new glass cabinet such is the weight of trophies it's been winning of late.
Reaching Gen Z: A New Tool For Marketers
New research finds there's actually more to marketing to the Zs than Billie Eilish and TikTok videos.
Delta Goodrem Becomes Revlon’s First Aussie Brand Ambassador
We won't hear a bad word about Delta here at B&T. Even if we choose to ignore her "Mark Philippoussis period".
Dentsu WA Unveils Inaugural Intern Program
Look at the wide eyed excitement in the eyes of these enthusiastic dentsu interns. B&T gives it six to 12 months.
Industry Backed Scholarship Launches In Memory Of Digital Ad Sales Pioneer Sam Smith
Social purpose organisation UnLtd in partnership with The Pinnacle Foundation has launched a new scholarship program in honour of the late Sam Smith. The ‘Sam Smith’ Scholarship will be awarded to young LGBTIQ+ Australians in the fields of marketing, advertising, technology, or communication. The scholarship program will fund students’ education, whilst providing additional support by matching […]
Audience Precision Secures RedEarth Energy Marketing And Communications Portfolio
Australian energy storage company, RedEarth Energy Storage, has appointed media strategy consultancy and technology business, Audience Precision, to stand alongside it in the creation of RedEarth as an iconic Australian brand in providing personal power plants to Australian businesses and residences. Audience Precision will provide research and insights, marketing and communications planning, campaign development, including […]
Dentsu International Nabs DDB’s Alex Hesz As Global Chief Strategy Officer
Dentsu nabs DDB's Alex Hesz as global chief strategy officer. One side claiming "key hire", the other "vile traitor".
Menulog Supports Local Musicians With New TikTok Campaign
Menulog supporting musicians in latest campaign. Seemingly far less interested in the safety of its delivery drivers.
Repco Celebrates Bathurst Weekend In Latest From Thinkerbell
B&T will be on the couch for this weekend's annual Bathurst race. Well, let's face it, we're on the couch every weekend.
Try On Tracksuit: Radically Affordable & Effective Brand Health Tracking
Here's an affordable way to track the health of any brand. Particularly if it's overdoing it on the booze & takeaways.
The Monkeys & Supercheap Auto Bypass Sponsor Dilemmas In Cheeky “1000 Bathursts” Campaign
Even if you hate motor racing you'll get a laugh out of this Monkeys spot. Although you could also learn to hate less.
10 Confirms Abbie Chatfield Hasn’t Been Blacklisted
10 has confirmed that Abbie Chatfield hasn't been backlisted. Yet, hasn't been invited to the Christmas party either.
