In 1953, Burger King opened its doors, under the name Insta-Burger King.
Fast forward over 50 years to the end of 2010, when a big company in Brazil, called 3G Capital,
bought a majority stake in the business.
The deal cost a whopping 3.26 billion bucks.
Throughout the years, this popular fast food restaurant chain has had its ups and downs.
It's the home of the Whopper, which is a good thing, but it's also been the subject of some
truly outrageous scandals.
Now and then Burger King has gotten some negative press so let’s check out the top 10 Burger
King scandals.
Horse Meat Whoppers In The UK
Horses are beautiful animals and it's safe to say that Burger King customers don't expect
horse meat in their Whoppers.
That's why the alleged presence of horse meat in Burger King burgers in the UK caused such
a huge scandal.
During 2013, the fast food chain's reps reported that very small amounts of DNA from horses
were discovered within one of the plants of a supplier.
Burger King stopped using that supplier right away, just to be on the safe side.
BK representatives said that there wasn't any DNA from horses in its food items though.
Unfortunately, a media outlet with a shady reputation, known as Before It's News, implied
that Burger King was selling burgers that did contain horse meat.
It looks like this particular scandal was a tempest in a teapot.
Before It's News exaggerated the situation and alarmed Burger King customers.
These types of trumped-up hoaxes do happen now and then after all.
Basically, there was no real proof that Burger King was peddling horse meat at its UK fast
food locations.
When these types of stories start circulating though, it means bad press for companies.
There’s always the possibility that the UK meat supplier, Silvercrest, did supply
Burger King with meat that contained some horse meat, but we'll never know for sure.
Burger King certainly didn't request meat with equine DNA, so the fault lay with Silvercrest.
Burger King did move fast to cut ties with the supplier, in order to ensure the quality
and purity of its burgers.
The Black Halloween Whopper
When Burger King introduced the black Halloween Whopper in 2015, it seemed like a great marketing
gambit.
The burger had a spooky black bun and apparently tasted really good.
This promotion was just picking up steam when customers who ate Halloween Whoppers started
noticing that their poop was turning green.
And this was because a lot of food coloring was used to turn the burger buns black.
When the food coloring combined with other substances in the digestive tract, the end
result was green bowel movements.
The food coloring was food-safe, so this strange phenomenon wasn't harmful in any way.
It was just unusual, and kind of ruined the whole Halloween Whopper promotion.
After the green poop scandal, Burger King moved on.
In October of 2018, it celebrated the Halloween season by introducing an exciting new whopper
that promised to deliver extra nightmares.
Nightmares weren't guaranteed, but there would be a higher likelihood of bad dreams after
scarfing Burger King Nightmare Burgers.
This burger featured a green bun, bacon, crispy chicken, a burger made from ground beef, mayo
and American cheese.
Test subjects who ate these burgers and then participated in sleep studies were 3.5 times
more likely to have nightmares.
Test subjects had some freaky dreams about people turning into snakes and attacks by
angry, violent aliens.
The Burger King Croissan'wich Scandal
Burger King went low during its famous Croissan'wich coupon scandal.
During a special promotion, customers were promised a great deal on Croissan'wiches,
as long as they had valid coupons.
The problem was, the coupons featured a higher retail price for the croissant sandwiches.
People noticed that they could buy Croissan'wiches for less money without the coupon.
When they used the coupon, they paid more for each sandwich.
The scandal resulted in a class action lawsuit that was settled during 2017.
A woman noticed the price issue when she used a "buy one, get one free" voucher to get a
couple of Croissan'wiches.
With the "buy one, get one free" promotion, she paid three dollars and nineteen cents
for a sandwich with cheese, egg and sausage and got the second one for free.
When she went back to the fast food counter to buy a single sandwich, without a coupon,
she paid only two dollars and sixteen cents.
Burger King was apparently jacking up the price of the BOGO Croissan'wich, so it wouldn't
take such a hit financially for the "two for one" promotion.
Thanks to the lawsuit, people who felt ripped off did have some recourse.
They were able to file for refunds until late January 2018.
It does seem like Burger King really goofed with this promotion.
If they hadn't, they wouldn't have had to issue gift cards for Burger King food to customers
who participated in the BOGO coupon deal.
This scandal damaged the fast food chain's reputation something bad.
The Unfriending Special Promotion
233,906 people were willing to unfriend people on social media in order to get free Whoppers.
This hilarious, but mean-spirited special promotion was known as the Whopper Sacrifice.
Would you ditch buddies on social media for the sake of a juicy free burger?
Many people did make this choice.
Facebook had to shut down the Whopper Sacrifice promotion after just ten days.
Burger King definitely got a lot of publicity from this scandal.
With the Whopper Sacrifice app, the people who were unfriended for free fast food actually
got notified of what happened.
This was pretty crass and probably part of the reason why Facebook cracked down on the
promotion.
The promotion required the unfriending of ten people to get one free Whopper.
23,000 free Whopper coupons were doled out during the Whopper Sacrifice.
The promotion was shut down during the middle of January in 2009.
Facebook claimed that privacy concerns for its users was the reason why the de-friending
app was eliminated.
This special promotion had so much attitude.
Sure, it was a scandal, but a lot of people loved it.
It set Burger King apart as an edgier type of fast food chain.
The promotion was definitely darkly humorous and many people who used the app had no issues
with pruning their friends lists for the sake of freebies.
The German Burger King Hygiene Scandal
This scandal erupted in 2014 and definitely hurt Burger King financially.
It wasn't a hoax or a bizarre social media promotion.
It was a very real problem with the conditions of many Burger King franchises in Germany
and with the condition of food served at those locations.
As a result of the scandal, Burger King Germany ended up closing 89 franchises.
RTL Television reporters went undercover to let the public know that food products that
were past their sell-by dates were being labelled as fresh.
Also, RTL revealed that burgers which were supposed to be grilled after they were ordered
were actually resting under warming lights for long periods of time, even hours.
Other problems revealed in the RTL report included hygiene violations, such as staff
making food for customers after cleaning washrooms, without bothering to clean themselves up properly
first.
Needless to say, all of this information really grossed out German fast food fans.
BK Germany had to take action to stop the negative publicity, and it turns out closing
many franchises seemed like the answer.
Apparently, the franchises hadn't followed the rules that they were supposed to.
So after breaking the rules they were punished.
Yi-Ko Holdings was the company that ran all of these franchises.
Its business practices were very sketchy.
That company also treated Burger King staff badly, by withholding bonuses, sick pay and
holiday pay.
The Big Mac Ripoff
Burger King does have a history of copying McDonald's menu items and it's not hard to
understand why.
McDonald's is the competition and the leader.
When Burger King unleashed its Big King XL burger in January of this year, it was touted
in a press release as containing way more beef than a Big Mac.
This was really the key difference between the Big King XL and the Big Mac.
Other than the XL having one hundred and seventy-five percent more beef, the burgers are eerily
similar.
The Big King XL features a half-pound of ground beef, as well as pickles, savory sauce, sliced
onions, American cheese and crisp lettuce.
That sounds a little familiar, right?
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but Burger King does get some flak
for copying Mickey D's, and the Big King XL isn't the first Burger King menu items that’s
a very close copy to a McDonald's menu item.
In truth, BK is always watching what McDonald's does and making business decisions accordingly.
McDonald's surely keeps tabs on Burger King, too, but doesn't seem to copy BK to the extent
that BK copies Mickey D's.
Another example of BK imitating McDonald's is BK's "The Rib Sandwich", which is just
so McRib-like.
Mary J. Blige And The Burger King Ad
When talented singer, Mary J. Blige, filmed a promo for Burger King Crispy Chicken Wraps,
there was public outcry.
Why?
Well, some people felt that having a black singer advertise fried chicken was a little
racist.
People were freaking out over the ad.
Mary's ode to the Burger King menu items caused outright outrage.
Burger King had to pull the ad down fast.
Even though it was pulled from YouTube, people were already remixing it.
Plus, the scandal was ensuring that the remixed video was being seen just about everywhere.
Obviously, BK's marketing team expected different results from this campaign.
Burger King did get tons of free publicity, but the publicity was not too positive.
Mary defended her participation in the ad by saying that Burger King didn't edit her
spot as promised.
Mary felt that the ad which went out to the public was unfinished and very different than
what she was told it would be like.
Burger King admitted that it pushed the ad out too soon, because it got all the paperwork
done and just wanted to get it out there.
In the end the fast food chain apologized to Blige.
The French Fry Burger
As scandals go, the Burger King "French Fry Burger" scandal was pretty tame and fairly
amusing.
BK decided to sell a burger that had four fries added to it.
That was basically the only thing that made the burger stand out.
It seemed a bit lame.
Wasn't really so creative.
Anyone can grab some fries and add them to a burger.
A small child could do it and many have.
The burger was launched in 2013 and retailed for just a dollar.
At this point in time, Burger King was ranked at number three in terms of fast food chains.
It wasn't interested in losing more ground, so it cooked up a burger concoction that didn't
require any big changes or new ingredients.
French fries were already on hand after all.
Experts believed that Burger King wanted to grab publicity and attract customers, without
needing to shell out money launching a brand-new menu item.
The burger wasn't too creative and it wasn't a monster hit.
After all, you could just do it yourself.
Burger King Hijacks Google Home
In 2017, Burger King got devious by creating a new and innovative ad campaign that hijacked
Google Home speakers.
Like many BK ad campaigns, it was kind of amusing.
However, this one was also controversial.
The company released a new ad that lasted just fifteen seconds.
It showed a person wearing a Burger King uniform getting close to the camera and asking Google
what a Whopper burger is.
People who kept Google Home speakers close to their televisions noticed that the question
asked by the person in the Burger King uniform would activate their speakers to start reading
out the Wikipedia page for the Burger King Whopper.
Yep, this ad got some attention, but also really annoyed a lot of people.
Burger King knew exactly what it was doing with this ad.
It had edited its Wiki page before the ad launched.
The edited Wiki page described the burger in a tantalizing way.
It's kinda hard not to laugh at this stuff.
At least it's creative.
But Google had no input into the ad.
As this list proves, Burger King's marketing team is occasionally a bit subversive.
To stand out from its competition, BK's marketers aren’t afraid to push the envelope.
Sometimes, it all seems to go too far, but Burger King hangs in there.
There are probably so many people who find ad gambits like the Google Home thing very
amusing.
Burger King is shooting for a younger demographic with its wackier promos.
Going for the youth dollar.
The Lettuce Bin Scandal
This scandal started with a meme, which is now known as the Burger King "foot lettuce"
meme.
The meme surfaced when a Burger King employee took a photo standing in two vats of Burger
King lettuce.
This rogue worker was a 4Chan user and the pic of the lettuce was the subject of fascination
on the internet when the controversial photo was posted back in 2012.
The employee was wearing black shoes while stepping into the lettuce.
He later lost his job because let’s face it, he deserved to.
People online who were curious about the image managed to figure out which Burger King location
it came from and let the media know what they'd discovered.
All of this led to the employee losing his job.
How this employee managed to pose for the photo without being discovered by a manager
is still unknown.
Clearly, the "foot lettuce" employee wasn't exactly Employee Of The Month material.
Burger King execs must have been really mad when this picture started circulating online.
Sometimes, bad workers will do real damage to businesses, including fast food joints.
Pics like "foot lettuce" never really seem to stop people from hitting those fast food
spots.
Most BKs don’t have employees who would do these things and this was an isolated incident.
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