Burger King to Scrap Ad After Complaint by Mexico Mica Rosenberg - Reuters go to original
This is Burger King's controversial commercial. A tall Texan cowboy and a small Mexican strongman in a cape meet through a newspaper ad, and become firm partners, as the narrator introduces the Burger King Texican Whopper as another unlikely combination that works, being the taste of Texas with a lttle spicy Mexican.
Mexico City - Fast food giant Burger King apologized on Tuesday for an advertisement featuring a squat Mexican draped in his country's flag next to a tall American cowboy and said it would change the campaign.
Mexico's ambassador to Spain said posters released in Europe for Burger King's new Tex-Mex style "Texican whopper," a cheeseburger with chile and spicy mayonnaise, inappropriately displayed the Mexican flag, whose image is protected under national law.
The ambassador wrote a letter complaining to Burger King and requested the ad campaign be discontinued.
Burger King (BKC.N) said the ads were meant to show a mixture of influences from the southwestern United States and Mexico, not to poke fun at Mexican culture, but said it would replace them "as soon as commercially possible."
"Burger King Corporation has made the decision to revise the Texican Whopper advertising creative out of respect for the Mexican culture and its people," it said in a statement.
"The existing campaign falls fully within the legal parameters of the United Kingdom and Spain where the commercials are being aired and were not intended to offend anyone," the company added.
A TV version of the ad shows the strapping cowboy and the pint-sized Mexican wrestler - nicknamed "Just a Little Bit" - living together as roommates. At one point, the American lifts up the Mexican to help him put a trophy on a high shelf.