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Maegan MillerMedia EthicsResearch Paper Burger King’s Controversial AdvertisementSex and advertising go back a long way and the types of imagery that are acceptable have also changed with the times (O’Barr, 2011). The use of sex in advertising can be extremely subtle to highly explicit in order to sell a particular service or product. Sometimes sex may or may not pertain to the particular product, service or brand. In today’s society, there is no doubt that sexual connotations can help sell a product. However, it is not always the case. Sex in advertising can also be offensive and turn away customers. But when a subliminal advertisement is seen, it can increase customer interest and sales. Advertisements on average are recalled by consumers at a 20 percent higher rate if they contain sexually explicit images or messages (Miller, 2009). Scott Purvis, president of an advertising research firm in New Jersey responded with saying, “Sexually explicit advertisements, as a group are not as persuasive as all advertising. It stops and gets people's attention, but they generally don't go further and get any kind of motivation of interest in the product itself” (Examiner, 2009). Men and women have been used to grab a viewer’s attention despite the link to the brand being advertised. Subliminal advertising will always be used as a selling tool because of the abuse of sexual imagery which brings gains in industry (Key, 2002). Humans are programed to the primitive urges of food and sexual reproduction. Burger King has been creating advertisements that have been both praised and scrutinized by many over the years. In 2009, Burger King released an advertisement showing a model with her mouth open with a seven-inch burger hovering in front of it. The tagline read: “It’ll blow your mind away. Fill your desire for something long, juicy and flame-grilled with the New BK Super Seven Incher” (Burger King, 2009). The tagline of this Burger King advertisement speaks for itself. It has been branded as being extremely controversial due to its sexual connotations to oral sex. The use of large bold words was not planted in the ad by accident and the word “blow” can be slang and has a reference to oral sex. The advertisement brings further controversy with the sub-headline “New BK Super Seven Incher” to persuade customers to beg for more. Does Burger King want the customer to indulge in their new hamburger or do they want the viewer to be distracted with the subliminal message of wanting oral sex? Or does Burger King want to send the message to the viewer that one can have both a large burger and oral sex? Further, the condiments on the sandwich also allude to oral sex specifically with the mayonnaise on the hamburger. The advertisement wants to send the message to customers that one could have the same amount of pleasure from eating the Burger King sandwich as they would from having oral sex. Sex appeal in advertising has the ability to drown out the real message of the advertisement by distorting the product’s recall and persuasion. The Burger King advertisement forces the viewer to make a connection between a big burger and oral sex. It is clearly an advertisement that would be degrading to women. Sex does sell more products and I believe Burger King wanted to stir conversation, but unfortunately it was offensive and rude to women customers. I believe this ad did reach its target audience and increased consumer interest to males. But in the women’s perspective, Burger King lost them as a consumer. Crispin Porter Bogusky, a Singapore ad agency, purchased the model’s stock image from a third party back in 2009 (Fox News, 2009). The images they bought were from a photo shoot where the woman was asked to portray a range of emotions (Fox News, 2009). Little did the model know, the image was used of what it looks like to be oral sex in a campaign for the fast food chain. Facts: A model’s image was taken without consent.The advertisement targeted young male customers telling them what to think and that they’ll approve it.A statement was released that Burger King values and respects all of its guests.Burger King Spokeswoman Lauren Kuziner refused to identify Singapore Ad Agency, Crispin Porter Bogusky.An advertisement of the burger ran to support a limited time promotion in the Singapore market and did not run in the U.S. or any other markets.“The campaign is supported by the franchisee in Singapore and has generated positive consumer sales around this limited time product offer in that market” (Miller, 2009).The advertisement was not banned. The ethical dilemma is clear regarding the 2009 Burger King advertisement. The ethical dilemma between Burger King and the model is the fact they used the model’s image to sell burgers in a sexualized way that targeted men and degraded women. The ad was interpreted what men desire: food, sex and women. The inappropriateness of the ad shows humiliation to the model. It is apparent of how women are used as sex objects to attract men’s attention in today’s society. It also shows how society feels that women need to put a lot of effort into their looks in order for men to notice them.In this particular ad, non-moral values were observed. Younger women are led to believe that those types of sexual actions are appropriate and accepted by society. They may be convinced that actions such as oral sex are what females even with good morals take part in often and therefore would not be looked down upon. The message that this ad implies is that a woman’s job is to please men. It is disturbing to think that society has obstructed the image of a woman. Yet, the advertisement agency was hired to depict a product in a foreign country in order to help promote the new hamburger and they did in fact do the job that they were hired to do.The principles that were in conflict in this dilemma were humaneness and freedom. The ethics of humaneness throughout this campaign was in conflict when depicting a woman in a sexually suggestive ad without her consent. The advertising agency should have been conscientious about how her image was going to be used. This not only hurt the model, but unnecessarily hurt the perception of women in general. Furthermore, the agency acted against the core principle of freedom. Burger King allowed the ad agency to allow for this unnecessary creativity of the brand to promote a burger in a distasteful way. Burger King fully supported this advertisement to help promote a product for a short time in Singapore, yet they didn’t want it to be publicized in the United States. However, Burger King should have been more responsible for their actions and apologize to those who were offended by their poor judgement.Both Burger King and Crispin Porter Bogusky acted in a very childish manner. They both wanted all the publicity and they achieved their goal, but it was negative publicity that got the best of them. They did not think about the circumstances they were to face from the public. The stakeholder that was clearly identified was women. Women were portrayed in a negative backlash which Burger King may have lost female demographic consumers. Furthermore, the model that was used in this advertisement is at stake. Her family, friends, coworkers and future employers may have assumed she was a willing player (Fox News, 2009). Other stakeholders are also the parents and kids that viewed this ad. Young kids thirteen and under do not understand the humor of this sexual connotation. If children happen to be watching the Burger King advertisement with their parents and see them react in shock or with uncontrollable laughter, are the parents ready to cover up the X-rated ad or would they consider explaining it to their children? Parents shouldn’t have to be put into these situations and children should never have unanswered questions about the true meaning of an advertisement-especially for a hamburger. Each day, children in the United States are exposed to fifteen television commercials for food. This equals almost 5,500 food advertisements in a year (The Dark Side of Subliminal Advertising). However, despite all the harsh criticism Burger King received over this advertisement, they did not apologize or ban the ad. They also didn’t apologize to the model whose image was distorted which makes this campaign morally wrong. Instead, Burger King replied with the statement, "Burger King Corp. values and respects all of its guests. This print ad is running to support a limited time promotion in the Singapore market and is not running in the U.S. or any other markets. The campaign is supported by the franchisee in Singapore and has generated positive consumer sales around this limited time product offer in that market” (Examiner, 2009). Surprisingly, Crispin Porter Bogusky Ad Agency said that its clients were satisfied by the results of the promotional effort. The tactic “sex sells” was definitely used to their advantage in this campaign. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Burger King’s sandwich isn’t healthy. Customers today know that fast food restaurants are unhealthy, yet they continue to be lured in with special promotions. In this case, selling sex to promote a healthy burger to males may have worked in their favor. Burger King may have been on the fast track to reeling in customers, but Burger King also needed to remember that not being tactful in advertising will have them working harder to clear up their muddy name after consumers throw them out with their trash.Two theoretical frameworks have substantial reference to this Burger King dilemma. The first framework is Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Plato believed that the information people obtain from their senses and which they tend to use in making life choices, was merely the result of the projection of reality, not reality itself. This ties to this dilemma because advertising tells us about the world/society before we even see it or experience it ourselves. They plant the pictures in our head and that is exactly what the agency did when creating the Burger King ad. They wanted men to be drawn into the sex appeal of the woman eating the sandwich. Another framework that is applies is John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle. In the eyes of journalism, Mill’s principle should consider the harm of the work that may cause others to be against the benefits of publishing the ad. In advertising, ads that had adverse effects on any segment of society could be called into question. In this case, the woman that was involved was offended merely because her image was taken without her consent. It was a clear example of harm and degradation of all women being at stake in our society. On April 20, I interviewed Kristine Kranenburg, an Advertising Professor at UW Whitewater. I chose Kristine as my interview candidate because of her former experience as a creative director at an ad agency in Chicago. I felt that she would be honest in voicing her opinion along with some thorough insight on this dilemma. When I approached her on the topic Kristine was, in fact, familiar with this Burger King advertisement years ago. She stated that this ad was in fact one of the most unethical ads she has ever seen. Kristine informed me that this dilemma was clearly intentional by Burger King. They purposely wanted to get bad viewers by presenting this ad to get people to talk. It was clearly a horrible form of ethics regarding the disrespecting the dignity of one another. They were offending the market by degrading women. She believed that Burger King intentionally and deliberately wanted to hurt people. According to Kristine Kranenburg, the agency had no class; they were a bad client and felt that everyone involved should have been fired. Furthermore, Kranenburg would have resolved the dilemma by issuing a public apology for the poor taste of judgment to the value of women consumers. She stressed how “advertising as good as the product” is important and knowing how to grasp the taste of culture you are submerged in before distributing the ad. “It was all common sense, and undoubtedly this ad agency didn’t have any,” said Kristine. Utilitarianism is a philosophical approach about how one should evaluate a wide range of things that involves choices that people face. In this case, a final evaluation of this this dilemma is being recognized. Utilitarianism is used a decision making tool for the media. Every time a journalist argues that publishing a story benefits its readers more than its harms the subject of the story, he is using utilitarian logic. The world saw that Burger King did not legitimately follow its code of ethics they are required to follow. It was the right thing to do for multiple journalists to release this story for the sake of unethical advertising. This ad crossed the line for numerous reasons. However, a substantial decision requires that we stop and consider how the actions of others will affect someone else in an adverse way.Sex has ideally been successful at cutting through clutter in advertising space to capture consumer attention. It is true that men and women have different beliefs when engaging in sexual activity in advertising. Men tend to adopt a relatively recreational orientation, an approach that emphasizes physical gratification and views sex as an end in itself (Journal of Consumer Research, 2009). In contrast, women tend to adopt a relationship-based orientation to sexuality,an approach that emphasizes the importance of intimacy and commitment in a sexual relationship (Journal of Consumer Research, 2009). Marketers should exercise caution when using sex to promote products if women are stakeholders. There are so many roadblocks when in the way of sex and advertising blends. It has become controversial whether or not "sex sells" in advertising and that it is actually hurting men and women. So, what you see in an advertisement is truly what you get? Society needs to stop looking at only the surface of an advertisement and search deeper into ourselves and our culture and ask how advertising can be depicted in a more tasteful way. SOURCESBurger King, (2009), Burger King’s Super Seven Incher – It’ll Blow your mind away [ONLINE]. Available at: [Accessed 5 March 15]. (2009) Burger King Oral Sex Ad. Retrieved from: News (2014). Model calls for a Burger King boycott after she was featured in a sexually suggestive ad. Retrieved from: Miller, J. (2009) Critics Cringe at Ad for Burger King’s Latest Sandwich. [ONLINE] Available at:. [Accessed 5 March 15].Key, K. (2002). Subliminal Sexuality: The Fountainhead of America’s Obsession. Retrieved from: , K. (2015) Interview. 20 April 2015. O’Barr, W. (2011). Sex and Advertising. Advertising & Society Review. Vol. 12. E-ISSN: 1534-7311.(n.d) The Dark Side of Subliminal Advertising. Retrieved from: Journal of Consumer Research. (2009). Sex in Advertising: Gender Differences and the Role of Relationship Commitment. Vol. 36 Issue 2, p215-231. 17p. 3. ................
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