SpongeBob and Square Butts: Yet Another Controversial Burger King Ad

Recommended Sources

About Food Industry

BNET Food provides daily industry trends and news coverage with insights for managers and executives, focusing on the major companies in the food and beverage sector, from manufacturers to retailers. In addition to detailed company profiles, we bring you industry analysis on new alliances and partnerships, food products, mergers and acquisitions, contamination events, health risks, investments, and a host of other important business issues.

Burger King has done it again. Angry parents and the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood are protesting a new ad featuring SpongeBob SquarePants and the Burger King icon dancing to a new version of one hit wonder Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.”

The original begins “I like big butts and I cannot lie” but in this version it’s “square butts” that Mix-A-Lot isn’t going to lie about. The commercial features gyrating women in outfits that give them “a butt with sharp right angles.”

The commercial has been criticized as being sexist and inappropriately sexual, especially considering that SpongeBob’s fan base includes pre-schoolers. But Burger King and SpongeBob creator Nickelodeon both insist the ad is targeted at adults, while different, more kid-friendly SpongeBob ads are running during children’s programming.

Controversy is nothing new for Burger King — or its ad agency. The chain has run a series of provocative promotions that have sparked ire but also attracted the company tons of free publicity — most recently, its Whopper Sacrifice Facebook application, in which you could get a free whopper by deleting ten friends.

Burger King also got flack for its Whopper Virgin ads, in which people in remote areas of the world were given their first fast food hamburger. And Flame, Burger King’s burger-scented body spray, didn’t make people angry, but it did inspire a lot of ridicule — though on the other hand, so many people bought it, Burger King brought it back for Valentine’s Day.

In addition to the 30-second “Square Butt” spot, Burger King produced a full-length music video featuring the creepy Burger King, SpongeBob and a bunch of dancing women.

Tags: Advertisement, Burger King Corp., Gender And Diversity, Human Resources, Katherine Glover

Katherine Glover is a Minneapolis-based print, radio and online journalist. She's written for Salon.com, Sierra Magazine and many others, and she does a weekly blog on immigration issues for MinnPost.

BNET User Analysis

Voice your 2cents

Web Buzz:

'SpongeBob' Episode A Chum To New Nick Series

Multichannel News - 13 days 3 hours 41 minutes ago

We would love your feedback! Post a comment Digital Rapids is the leading provider of professional hardware and software tools, technology and expertise for bringing video to wider audiences and new viewing platforms. Continuing to set new standards in quality, productivity and versatility... more Parks Associates is an internationally...
BURGER KING BUTTS

My Open Kimono - 228 days 1 hour 21 minutes ago

Crispin, Porter & Bogusky is on a stale roll with Burger King. The latest television spot featuring Sponge Bob Square Pants is causing a stir among moms. Rapper references to "booty is booty" and "I like square butts" are stretching the limits for many parents....some calling for a boycott. A video of the commercial follows with our...
Burger King's Big Misstep

BusinessWeek - 192 days 7 hours 23 minutes ago

By Nanette Byrnes Browse the BusinessWeek Archive Chidsey is sticking with the chain's viral ads—but playing up value, too Jared McMillen Burger King (BKC) gets a lot of buzz for its irreverent, often sexy ads. There's the "manthem," sung by men turning up their noses at "chick food" to get their hands on a Texas Double Whopper, and its...
Time Warner, Viacom reach New Year’s deal

Bizjournals - 325 days 11 hours 33 minutes ago

Time Warner Cable viewers weren’t deprived of “SpongeBob SquarePants” or any other shows on Viacom Inc.-owned channels over the New Year’s holiday as the two companies reached a last-minute deal on carriage fees. Viacom had threatened to black out its programming starting at 12:01 a.m. New Year’s Day if a deal wasn’t reached. That...
Viacom, Time Warner reach New Year’s deal

Bizjournals - 325 days 12 hours 2 minutes ago

Time Warner Cable viewers weren’t deprived of “SpongeBob SquarePants” or any other shows on Viacom Inc.-owned channels over the New Year’s holiday as the two companies reached a last-minute deal on carriage fees. Viacom had threatened to black out its programming starting at 12:01 a.m. New Year’s Day if a deal wasn’t reached. That...

BNET TalkbackShare your ideas and expertise on this topic

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

1

SuzanneG301

04/14/09 | Report as spam

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood

An old Shakespeare quote is apporpriate here: The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood doth protest too much!
These characters make a lot of noise railing against fastfood advertising aimed at children, but not enough is said about what types of messages this outfit DOES want aimed at children. So here goes: Asthma awareness, cancer awareness, and pretty much anything that deifies the medical/pharma/therapy industries. Wanna green light from the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhod? Message the need for therapy and listening to your doctor/psychologist/certified caregiver. Just look at who's on their advisory board. A veritable who's who of psychobabble.
2

Netgk

05/02/09 | Report as spam

RE: SpongeBob and Square Butts: Yet Another Controversial Burger King Ad

These Burger King commercials have been really weird lately. First they had the "Whopper virgin" ad with Mr. Burger King lying down by the fire, chest exposed, with as much of a "come-hither" look as he could express through that creepy plastic face. Clearly not for kids, and definitely not making me hungry. And now scantily-clad women are shaking their butts around. So their butts are square - that's supposed negate the sexy factor? The girls are still shaking their butts in short skirts, and the King is drooling over their butts. Imagine it's not TV. Imagine a salesman knocking on your door and wanting to talk to your kids, and what he wants to tell them is how yummy he finds girls in short skirts shaking their square butts around. Would you let him in?

I keep hearing ADULTS say they think the as's funny. IT'S FOR A KID'S MEAL. IT'S AIMED AT KIDS. These Burger King commercials have been really weird lately. First they had that one with Mr. Burger King lying down by the fire, chest exposed, with as much of a "come-hither" look as he could express through that creepy plastic face. Clearly not for kids, and definitely not making me hungry. And now scantily-clad women are shaking their butts around. So their butts are square - that's supposed negate the sexy factor? The girls are still shaking their butts in short skirts, and the King is drooling over their butts. Imagine it's not TV. Imagine a salesman knocking on your door and wanting to talk to your kids, and what he wants to tell them is how yummy he finds girls in short skirts shaking their square butts around. Would you let him in?

And funny?? Yeah, what a knee-slapper. ?Huh, huh. Girl shake butt. Butt square. Me laugh."
3

z4t4

07/31/09 | Report as spam

The REAL Dirty word here is CHILDREN

Ah...That magical word "Children" - Yes, just say you are protecting "Children" and wait for the gasp. All copier machines fall silent, tap water is turned off and the radio is turned down. "Chhhhhiiildren"....Those poor little suffering darlings that grow up to be a cranky spoiled ranting runt you find as a micro star on YOUTUBE videos. Some even graduate to thinking they are so great, they wind up as the "YOU GOT TO SEE THIS" title as a reject by Simon Cromwell?s' X factor. Shocked by this rejection because all their friends saw that YOUTUBE mantra and said she could win. What this all boils down to is that freaky BK guy and a burger. At the end of the day the kid will ask for something and they will either like it or, they won't. That is not the danger. The REAL DANGER here is the sick groups that make fantastic claims that Children are somehow being harmed. This is only partly true however, as the real harm is coming from those who are doing the screaming. Its these types of nit wits that make great claims like Cigarette advertisers are targeting kids. That noise reaches the state capitols and next thing you know they raise the tax on a product to protect them! I can now take pride knowing that I'm smoking for kids, right? After all they don't advertise marijuana and cocaine yet, its the kids that do most of these. Just keep them away from those EVIL Hamburgers or face impending doom!