Did you guys actually watch the video? Because they did, in fact, show a number of people who preferred the Big Mac to the Whopper, they didn’t just omit them from the video. The video focused very, very little on the results of the taste test, merely showing a quick collage of people choosing either the Big Mac or Whopper.

Burger King doing this in “impoverished” areas of the world or that they are feeding people fatty food is not really that offensive. I agree that people making an assumption that these people are “impoverished” is in fact equally offensive.

However, assuming that these people’s apparent ignorance of American food culture means that they have a “pure” judgment of it, and then using this to sling your product IS offensive. In this instance, leveraging someone’s supposed ignorance as a marketing ploy is also ineffective. If Burger King wants to convince me that their food tastes better, what the hell do I care if some tribesman from the Bush likes it better than a Big Mac. Maybe they should take all that money they spent on helicopter fuel and use it to flavor their burgers here. Or, how about a discount on my Whopper?

If a major burger chain from the Philippines (namely, Jollibee) came to you and wanted you to taste test their food … unless you like gobs and gobs of mayo on your burger, I would suggest either a very large bib or skipping the test.

another said burger king should have used the money to help feed them real food, and get them out of impoverishment, which is ridiculous because burgerking as a company, is hundreds of thousands of people working hard to earn their money, and i would hate for someone to tell me how to spend MY money. and on top of that, its burgerkings aggressive marketing that EARNED them that money in the first place!

a third person said it was wrong of us to be expanding, business wise, into these other countrys. this ABOVE ALL ELSE outraged me, because these people who complain about american business in other countrys seem to forget the number of foreign businesses in america. 711 being one of the huge ones, is owned by a japanese company . half our cars are from over sees, 90% of ethnically themed restaurants were established by their respective cultures, and in a way, can be considered foreign business. look around you and see how much of what you buy on a daily basis puts money into foreign economys and try and understand the value of a global economy.

finally what offended me about peoples reactions. was how they were blaming america for getting their people fat. this makes me assume that they believe a few things.

1. american fast food is somehow, more powerful than local fast food, or local fast food is non existant (which may be the case)

2. people shouldnt have the right too choose what they eat, because people cant control themselves.

I don’t know about you, but i don’t blame the Chinese for getting me fat every time a Chinese food place opens up. I’m aware that its not ‘real’ Chinese food, but to be honest i dont consider burgerking ‘real’ American food.

as for the willingness of the participants, its a burger not crack. you cant blame the ‘fatass american’ theory on why they tried it because they never had it before, and i seriously doubt they had a gun to their heads. i love trying foreign foods personally, and clearly these people do as well. i have to pay 1.50$ to get a pizza delivered from down the street and these people are getting food flown in from across the world for free, it makes me wish other countrys would start doing the same thing.

words can not express, how disturbed i was by peoples reactions to this campaign, but i made an honest try at least. so for everyone that finds this ad to be in bad taste, i have 6 words for you. Fuck you, im getting a whopper.

@ Alice: your sentence is incomplete (I have a high horse too, see?)

Umm, I’m sure I could smack this down in about 4 seconds, but…do I really have to? I mean this psychobabble with no logic or reasoning behind it kind of defeats itself.

Alice, come back and comment again when you have something with a little more substance to add to the discussion.