U.S.-Mexico Relations Strained Over BK Ad
For all of the seriousness with which this blog tries to approach international relations, strategic communications and related topics, sometimes you’ve just got to laugh. Or at least you probably should.
From AdFreak.com’s David Kiefaber comes this latest foreign relations tempestad en una tetera: (That’s a tempest in a teapot, for anyone who didn’t earn a gender-neutral “gentleman’s B” in Spanish 1002, or who hasn’t mastered the shameful art of using Google translation to impress the easily-impressed.)
Anyway…
This European ad from Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CP + B) for Burger King’s Texican Whopper is honestly pretty harmless, but it has Mexico up in arms about its people being portrayed as tiny luchadors who wear their nation’s flag like a cape. It’s the first cross-border advertising dispute since that infamous Absolut ad from Mexico City. We’ve seen worse stereotyping of Mexicans, though. And Consumerist is right to ask what kind of cowboy can’t open his own jars. But it’s worth pointing out that chaps are buttless by design, so that’s not insulting, either. At least he wore them over pants.
Given some of the more transgressive trippiness emanating from the CP + B agency these days on behalf of BK, you probably shouldn’t get your wrestling tights in too much of a twist over this. Personally, I’m just immune after sitting through 90+ minutes of (the only-slightly-taller) Jack Black doing basically the same thing in Nacho Libre.
As for you mamas out there, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys that can’t open their own PB and J ….or PB + J. As for the sorry one in the ad, I reckon’ some kind soul needs to put one of these newfangled things in his stocking for Christmas.
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