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"We are apologising because it wasn't our intent to offend anyone," Denise T Wilson, spokesman of Burger King said in an email when asked about the demand of the Hindu community that the company need to apologise for running an advertisement which its leaders said were offensive to their religion.
"Burger King Corporation (BKC) values and respects all of its guests as well as the communities we serve. This in-store advertisement was running to support only local promotion for three restaurants in Spain and was not intended to offend anyone," Wilson said.
"Out of respect for the Hindu community, the limited-time advertisement has been removed from the restaurants," Wilson said a day after the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) in a statement asked Burger King to remove the offensive advertisement.
The Foundation in a statement said on Wednesday that the Burger King is running a print advertisement in Spain that depicts an image of the Hindu Goddess, Lakshmi, seated atop a meat sandwich, other foodstuffs with a catch phrase, "A snack that's sacred", written in Spanish.
"An advertisement knowingly and intentionally using sacred symbols, especially those of another religious tradition, for purely commercial purposes can be offensive," said Suhag Shukla, managing director and legal counsel for the Foundation.
Even though the Hindu American Foundation has not received any information in this regard form Burger King, Shukla said: "This is welcome news."
HAF in its letter to Burger King did allude to the company's positive track record of quickly removing and apologising for previous offensive ad campaigns, she noted.
"Of course we would hope that such misjudgment did not occur in the first place, but we are indeed pleased to hear of Burger King's move," Shukla said.
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This is the curse of globalisation of every thing. After all what is there with these chain of fast food restaurants other than piece of chicken, potatos and buns. For the same of publicity they go any level to grab the market and make the people fools.
On a separate but related topic. I think it is terrible that Burger King does not accept customer comments via email.
Shame....shame burger king, you are habitual offenders.
well done to the Hindu community for standing up against this. Burger King should be shamed of themselves.
Arun, what are you waiting for...Go burn your surrounding. Go kill people on the street. disrupt traffic. burn couple of bus. go ahead... or you want some one else to do that for you?
we are proud of you (HAF)Mr.Suhag Shukla for making them understand the importance
to arun. This is the main reason we need VHP
How will not a foreigner not get bold enough to offend Hindu Gods and Goddesses when our own government calls anyone speaking for Hindus as communal and speaking for other communities secular. We should learn to stand erect before daring to fight.
If a similar advertisement had come out denigrating Islam entire Muslim world would have protested. Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia would have burned. People like you would have given pious sermons to the people who placed such advert. But here you have only commented and nothing more. You have not even objected to it