Spanish Burger King Ad Denigrates Hindu Goddess Lakshmi as Pun

Published on September 2nd, 2009

Spanish Burger King Ad Denigrates Hindu Goddess Lakshmi – Eat Me Daily — Fantastic. Burger King is out of control.

Burger King Spain is really knocking them out of the park these days — first they set off an international incident over their Texican Whopper ads with a tiny luchador wearing a Mexican flag, but that apparently wasn’t enough. So some Burger Kings over in Iberia started displaying posters that show the Hindu goddess Lakshmi sitting on top of a meat sandwich with the tagline “La marienda es sagrada” roughly translated: “A snack that’s sacred”. Cute and all, except for the part where Hinduism dictates strict avoidance of the consumption of meat. Hindus everywhere are insulted and upset, and jumping the issue over to our side of the pond, the Hindu American Foundation is called for Burger King to pull the ads and for an apology.

20 users responded in " Spanish Burger King Ad Denigrates Hindu Goddess Lakshmi as Pun "

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# 1 TooManyPuppies said, on September 2nd, 2009 at 11:10 pm

Well, they can always fall back and run more ads with the Pedophile King like we have in the States.

# 2 opcow said, on September 2nd, 2009 at 11:28 pm

I’m waiting for their LOL Jesus ad campaign.

# 3 Glenn E. said, on September 2nd, 2009 at 11:57 pm

Does anyone else get the impression that a bunch of marketing dropouts have taken control of Burger King’s advertising, worldwide?! I thought it was just the US ads that were on the creepy side. But apparently, their marketing dept. is out to offend every nation they can. Hoping this new “gimmick” gets more people to notice them and buy their fast food. But these ads aren’t what I would even consider as clever and appropriate. They just plain stupid. Devised by some moron(s) who probably got the job thru nepotism. Whoever is coming up with this stuff, ought to be fired. But his daddy is probably too powerful an exec to let that happen. And I suppose the BK shareholders have no say in this matter, as usual.

Why can’t Tv advertising return to the more innocent days of cute cartoon characters, like the Hawaiian Punch guy, Captain Crunch, or the original Burger King King. Not some guy in a large plastic head, that doesn’t speak at all. The Wendy character of Wendy’s makes me want to eat there, far more than the BK King does. Are 30 second animations that expensive, that they go this far to avoid them? BK needs to hire real talent at writing jingles and advert copy. And not depend solely on the boss’s son’s or nephew’s bad ideas.

# 4 Michael_GR said, on September 3rd, 2009 at 12:01 am

This isn’t the first time something like this happened. A few years ago in Israel Burger King decided to promote their flame-broiled burger. They made the connection to the Indian practice of “fire walking” and made a commercial in which a guy with a pronounced Indian accent tells how his family used to walk on charcoals and now he’s “going for [meat broiled on] charcoals – in Burger King” (in Hebrew it’s more of a pun as “walking on X” also means “going for X” or “choosing to have X”). Then you see this guy, whose ancestors must have been hindus (only hindu fire-walk – Muslim/Jewish indians don’t) taking a huge bite out of a whopper.

# 5 Sam said, on September 3rd, 2009 at 12:19 am

Nice. If the marketing executives thought this was the best ad campaign concept out of the bunch they choose from, I’d like to see the ones that didn’t make the cut.

# 6 Ah_Yea said, on September 3rd, 2009 at 1:18 am

I believe different.

Excellent marketing. Why?

Huge free advertising. Right to the Burger King base.

Think about it. How many practicing Hindus do you think eat at Burger King? None! (Beef = Cow = Sacred)

It’s not like they’re LOOSING any customers.

Here is the brilliant part.

I bet Burger King is trying to expand into Muslim countries. Muslims don’t like Hindus and probably would find this hilarious.

# 7 RTaylor said, on September 3rd, 2009 at 2:01 am

You earthlings are so entertaining.

# 8 Eina said, on September 3rd, 2009 at 2:48 am

“Hinduism dictates strict avoidance of the consumption of meat”?

Beef maybe, not all meat, although a lot of Hindus are vegetarians.

# 9 Santa Maria said, on September 3rd, 2009 at 4:23 am

Who cares? Why should we be so sensitive to Muslim religious icons when they don’t feel the same towards others?

# 10 bobbo, comparative religion is always interesting said, on September 3rd, 2009 at 4:29 am

Good thing our western god doesn’t mind being commercialized for any issue at all. Well, maybe other gods. I don’t think god would be happy as a member of a nine man/god baseball team. He’d want to play all the positions himself. His team and the other team as well.

I wonder who would win?

# 11 pedro said, on September 3rd, 2009 at 5:11 am

People should lighten up. The Spanish would’ve done the same with Jesus.

#2 In Spain, that is just a matter of waiting.

#3 I don’t know if it’s worldwide. But that’s the norm in Spain. Is not exclusive for the Spanish BK ad agency.

#6 I also think that way. Excellent ad.

#9 Muslim? Boy, thanks for teaching me something new today.

# 12 amodedoma said, on September 3rd, 2009 at 5:21 am

Spain is like the world’s capital for politically incorrect, culturally insensitive publicity. Cultural and racial stereotypes are typical. I’ve seen ‘anuncios’ that’d really raise hell back in the US. I’m not saying it’s not some international publicity campaign designed to shock and disturb, but we got plenty of national publicity that’s shocking and disturbing.

# 13 Ron Larson said, on September 3rd, 2009 at 6:29 am

I always though McDonalds was creepy with the bizzaro and evil looking “Ronald” pushing burger on kids. However, BK has managed to out creep even McDonalds now.

I recently saw a BK TV ad where their creepy king pulls a prank by putting some sauce (or something… I can’t remember what) on a sleeping woman’s face in the dark. I saw that ad and could not help but think “What in the hell are they going to slip in to my burger?”. The ad has preventing me from ever going to BK again.

# 14 MikeN said, on September 3rd, 2009 at 6:34 am

Hinduism requires meat eating for certain castes. It is beef that is forbidden.
Probably the first person the reporter contacted to ask about it was a vegetarian.

# 15 PeterR said, on September 3rd, 2009 at 6:51 am

#12: Spain is like the world’s capital for politically incorrect, culturally insensitive publicity. Cultural and racial stereotypes are typical. I’ve seen ‘anuncios’ that’d really raise hell back in the US. I’m not saying it’s not some international publicity campaign designed to shock and disturb, but we got plenty of national publicity that’s shocking and disturbing.

And a good thing too. The rapant stupidity we see every day in the USA and UK, where everyone is so scared of offending anyone, hasn’t taken hold here and hopefully never will. So you don’t like the way Spain is? Fine, go someplace else.

# 16 chuck said, on September 3rd, 2009 at 7:07 am

How can you denigrate a fictional character?

# 17 pedro said, on September 3rd, 2009 at 8:02 am

#15 Spain compensates by being intolerant against the people in their own regions (Basques, Catalans, etc.) & illegal immigrants.

#16 Ask that to comic book freaks.

# 18 Brice said, on September 3rd, 2009 at 10:29 am

Getting offended at something like this is so irrational. Get offended at something that matters. Children being taught creationism in Science class rooms, people dieing on the streets, commercials flat our lying to you etc. An ad not worshiping at the feet of some silly religion is nothing. It’s not even really being rude toward people of the faith. Basically it could be a lot “worse”. Either way I can’t wait till Burger King does a Christian ad. That will be the straw that broke the camel’s back here in America.

# 19 deowll said, on September 3rd, 2009 at 5:19 pm

Nothing wrong with the idea as long as nobody follows the faith any more.

# 20 Hitos said, on September 4th, 2009 at 8:21 am

#18 Yes, it’s irrational, and no, I doubt a Christian ad would be such a big deal.

There would be some whiny folks, and that’s all. Using Jesus and God characterizations for comedy purposes is not too uncommon.

According to several articles I’ve seen in the news hindus in general seem to be very sensitive(and aggressive) about inappropriate mentions of their religion. I might be wrong, since news often blow things out of proportion.

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