From the WTF? Files
The ad shown above is possibly the most reprehensible piece of television advertising I have ever seen. Whoever thought this concept up should be taken out and force-fed the advertiser's product until they throw up or something.
It looks to me like the ad is trying to play off the success of Borat – simple people from a strange foreign country who are all craving the taste of America. And therein lies the problem - surely there should be places in the world where people just don't eat burgers. It's not part of their culture or their way of life. What right does an American burger conglomerate have to come in and feed them this stuff, even for just an ad? It smacks of arrogant cultural imperialism to me and makes this ad extremely unpalatable.
Note the way that the ad actually says very little that actually backs their claim that "the Whopper Virgins have spoken". There's no "9 out of 10 Inuits tested prefer our burger to the competitors", the ad just says "these individuals prefer the Whopper". So maybe only the three or four people we see actually prefer the Whopper. What if they fed burgers to 400 Thai tribesmen and only one liked it? Ah, weasel words at their very finest.
Finally, the look on some of their faces as they point out the Whopper seems to suggest they'd rather be eating anything else than a burger (Check out the Romanian lady at 19 seconds). However, they're only given the choice between the two burgers in front of them. It's almost like they're being asked "which pile of mud tastes better?" and a victory seems damning with faint praise.
Really, the only way this ad could be worse, be more cultually insensitive, is if they'd decided to take their beef-filled sandwiches to a small village in India and ask them what they thought of it.
Posted in: advertising, chaosboy, united states, weirdness on December 15, 2008 at at 10:24:00 AM
Of course, there is the distinct possibility that they're all actors - that wouldn't be unheard of in ads...
But no, they haven't unleashed this piece of crud on .au - we're getting the Angry Whopper at the moment - one with jalapenos and spicy sauce (suitably toned down to not *actually* be very hot, I'd assume...)
Nevertheless, your basic points are quite valid :-)