Today some guys are sitting around in an advertising agency nervously biting their nails and furrowing their worried brows, wondering if they’re going to get the big heaveho. Because they’ve blundered – big time! But don’t worry, you needn’t feel sorry for them, because they designed a series of crass and offensive adverts for Gourmet Burger Kitchen, pasted around London.
Vegan activists led by Robbie Lockie (including me!) in the Facebook group Vegan UK and with help from friends and allies, got this trending on Twitter last night.
Robbie’s version of the image
First the campaign was taken up by The EcoHustler
Then The Metro Please do read both excellent articles.
GBK’s response
GBK told Metro.co.uk: ‘Our new adverts have purely light-hearted intentions and were not meant to cause any offence. We’ve been serving beef as a core part of our menu for the last 15 years and, whilst we’re carnivores at heart, we have an extensive range of vegetarian options available.
‘We value our #vegetarian customers and their views, and have therefore made the decision to change some of our ads.’
And again
We’ve been reading the reaction to our latest advertising campaign and needless to say, we’re quite taken aback. The last thing we ever intended to do was offend or alienate vegetarians. The same vegetarians that we’ve looked after and fed since our very first restaurant. Our intentions were light-hearted and not meant to cause any offence, but clearly we have, and for that we apologise.
While we’ve served beef at the core of our menu since 2001, we’ve always catered well to the veggies out there, and that’s never going to change.
So having read all your comments and messages, we’ve made the decision to take down some of the adverts. We’ll still serve beef. We’ll still serve veggie burgers. But hopefully we’ll not tread on anyone’s toes while doing it. Best, GBK.
Well, sorry GBK, that just is not good enough. While it’s great that the ads are being taken down, our campaign is not about our being sensitive little souls who are easily offended. It’s not our toes you’re treading on. What we are passionate about is raising the profile of farmed animals in order to expose the appalling suffering they endure in their lives – lives only ended with a bloody death at the slaughterhouse.
It’s not too late to join the thousands already participating in Veganuary!
New Flash! We’re in The Evening Standard now. And The Telegraph And if you look at the tweets in the article you will see mine! And now The Huffington Post
In fact we hit just about every national newspaper, The Independent, The Daily Mail, The Mirror and many online too.
#gourmetmurderkitchen
Good for you! Great work. Cheers!
LikeLike
Very encouraging, isn’t it? Shows what we can do when we raise our voices and work together x
LikeLike
They really just do not get it do they, they don’t seem to make the connection between meat and the appalling treatment of animals on factory farms – well any farm as at the end of the day the animal is killed to provide meat a food we do not need. Even if they did make the connection their main concern is profit and sadly in this world profit will come before animals and people for that matter. Their placatory response is very hollow, sadly a few well chosen words does not let them off the hook. Well done, what an amazing campaign such publicity highlights the problem and may make more people think. Because I rather feel this is the problem in addition to profit of course they simply fail to make the connection. In a way the advert has opened up an opportunity to raise the profile of the plight of farm animals. Like the replacement advert which is nearer the truth.
LikeLiked by 1 person