The Russian arm of Burger King has aplogised and withdrawn a campaign which would have rewarded women 3m roubles (€40,980) and free Whopper burgers for life if they got pregnant with a World Cup player’s baby.
The promotion was quickly shelved by Burger King who released a statement to apologise for the insensitive campaign.
https://twitter.com/EnglishRussia1/status/1009069886105153536
In a statement on Wednesday to The Associated Press, Burger King said: “We are sorry about the clearly offensive promotion that the team in Russia launched online.”
It said the offer “does not reflect our brand or our values and we are taking steps to ensure this type of activity does not happen again.”
The promotion comes on the back of a similarly insensitive campaign run by Burger King Russia last year in which the fast-food chain ran an ad depicting a 17-year-old victim of rape and beating.
Burger King posted an image on its page in the Russian social network Vkontakte, showing a girl with the haircut and clothes of Diana Shurygina, who was allegedly raped at a party by 21-year-old Sergey Semyonov who was sentenced to eight years behind bars.
On the Burger King poster, the girl makes the same gesture she used on the show to indicate how much vodka she had drunk before the assault: “Just a little.”
