Graphic burger buns ad banned for degrading women
A “degrading” ad for Bondi burger shop Goodtime Burgers featuring a patty sandwiched between a woman’s buttocks with the strapline “The freshest fun between the buns” has been banned by the Advertising Standards Board.
The ad appeared in December’s issue of Bondi community magazine The Beast to promote the opening of a new Bondi Junction store, with the owner saying staff at the publication approved the ad before it ran.
One complainant wrote “the woman’s body and private parts are objectified as something for people (probably men) to consume”, but the firm defended itself saying the intention was not to objectify women, but to be a “play on words” over the word buns.
The company also claimed the ad appeared in a “private” forum with the magazine aimed at people on Sydney’s Eastern beaches who are “in close relation to a casual environment which is associated with the beach and summer”.
It argued there would not have been a complaint if the image used had been a man’s rear end instead, admitting “the use of a woman’s butt as a burger bun appears to be questionable” according to the Ad Standards Code.
In its determination the board said: “The Board considered that, although the advertiser intended the image to be a humorous depiction, the close up image of the woman’s bottom and the portrayal of her bottom as a burger likened the woman to a piece of meat or object for consumption and objectified women. The Board also considered that this depiction of a woman as a burger is exploitative of women and degrading.”
It ordered the ad to be pulled from any further publication, with the business saying it would not use the image again.
Alex Hayes
See, when I look at that ad, I just end up thinking, “Must be a sh!t burger.”
(I really hope I’m not beaten to the punch on that joke.)
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that ad doesn’t make me want me to eat their burgers at all.
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As a female, not offended from the viewpoint of it being sexist – but totally grossed out. Disgusting!
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Why show the picture?
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Aside from the “substance”, someone needs to teach Alex Hayes (“journo”) the difference between its and it’s. His copy says, in part: “In it’s determination the board said…”.
Alex, repeat after me and then write 100 times:
it’s = it is
its = belongs to
Happy new year.
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Hi C Hutzpah,
Thanks for the comment and well spotted- unfortunately things sometimes slip through in edit, but rest assured I am well versed in the difference between it’s and its – unfortunately the iPad I was writing on was not.
@Paul by showing the image it allows readers to decide for themselves whether they think the ad is offensive or “degrading”.
Cheers,
Alex Hayes, editor, Mumbrella
hahaha @ noni. Well played sir!
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Far from manly!! BJ should be known for more than Oxford St killer Westfield. That tomato can’t be fresh.
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Well.. I’m so over everyone being offended by almost nothing. Nobody can do or say or express anything without upsetting someone these days. Aside from that, it’s just not a very good advert. I agree with Noni.
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I’d more likely buy the burger if it was a bloke’s arse
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Here’s an easy test for advertisers to see if their advertisement is exploitative of the female form. Ask yourself, does the advertisement work if the the male form is used instead? If not, it’s sexist. Simple, really.
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Try our Deluxe Goodtime Burgers … it smells like fish and tastes taste like shit.
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I think Mr Hutzpah might have a point, iPad auto-correct or no…There seems to be a plague of its/it’s confusion spreading across the site. Recent cases in point from other stories:
Whilst its hard to feed the beast, it’s also hilarious to see these seasoned professionals crumble under pressure.
Now in it’s fourth season, the car-crash cooking show My Kitchen Rules continued to dominate the ratings race this year.
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Frankly whether a man’s bum or woman’s bum were used wouldn’t make a difference. The association of something you eat emerging from that part of the anatomy…..well…..say no more. It’s simply gross.
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Well said @Jessica.
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The creative mind behind this should be applauded. Not thrown in to the fire by feminists who are always looking for a fight. The point of the ad was to engage and that’s what it did. Deal with it! They win 😉
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The ruling said it depicted the woman as a piece of meat, but surely it depicted her as a bun?
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Several comments have made the point that this add isn’t ‘sexist’….I think this missed the essential point that regardless of gender we should not depict human beings as objects to be consumed. There is no other way to see or spin this add- the woman’s rear end was displayed as being the bun for a burger, the implication also being her personal parts were the delicious meat inside. Regarding gender, the point is the fact that women are displayed in objectifying ways far more commonly than men, and we need to ask ourselves why this is. However if it were the other way around, and men were more often depicted in this light it would be an issue in need of similar reflection. Human beings are valuable, worthy of respect and dignity – this is the point here, not sexism.
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Minging, degrading & in very poor taste.
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the Ad is quite apt. Maybe you all don’t realize the amount of actual shit that makes it’s way into mincemeat, believe me – it contains shit. The Ad is very apt. Now come @ me with your hate 🙂
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That someone would take the time to write to complain is indicative of what’s really wrong with society – hope they have time for fun; living near Bondi doesn’t seem to help – would suggest they move to someplace more apt for their preciousness
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Interesting that by banning the ad, publicity is increased. Did Goodtime Burgers tell the media about the ban? If so, clever little ploy. I agree with the self checking Jessica suggested but I also think the media industry need to stop providing free advertising to these companies for these cheesy (pardon the pun) exploits.
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the two most beautiful experiences a man will ever have in his life are, the sight and touch of a womans naked body, and the sound of her laughter because of something you have said or done.
this ad is merely a celebration of the deliciousness of the female form.
it serves as a reminder to all those men who have forgotten, for one reason or another (stress, work pressure, poor health, etc.), just how delicious, intoxicating, tasty, etc., women are.
ads like this serve a great social purpose because it encourages those men stuck on the hampster wheel to pause for a moment and again think back to when the mere thought of the female form made them heady and delerious, and in doing so might be the catalyst for paying their partners a bit more attention, instead of letting life pass them by.
there was nothing whatsoever derogatory about the ad.
it is no different to an AussieBum ad featuring a guy in tight, white, wet, transparent, speedos.
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Hi not from Bondi,
To be clear the company did not tell us about the ban, it was picked up from the publicly available Ad Standards Boards ruling as referenced in the piece, a source we regularly run stories from.
Cheers,
Alex, Editor, Mumbrella
Yeah, I remember those ads of men wearing Speedos with the bum cheeks cut out of them crapping out a burger. They were everywhere. Imagine thinking a picture of a woman doing a big sloppy turd burger was celebrating the human form! More like celebrating coprophagia 😀 Still I suppose if watching distorted bum cheeks squeeze out a turd burger makes you more sensitive, go for it. It takes all sorts 😀
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Oh, and of course – Advertising either works, or it doesn’t. Companies pay large amounts of money to advertise, so, either advertising works by implanting ideas in people’s minds or pretty much every company in the world is wasting their money.
But, when an ad plants a gross idea in people’s heads, when they now consider a small company they might have considered shopping at as disgusting or offensive, or think of them as making sloppy turd burgers, that has no effect at all. Right.
I guess that’s why Sh** Burgers pulled it. They knew it couldn’t possibly have any negative effect.
Makes perfect sense 😀
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Lucky the picture was a beef burger and not a fillet of fish
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I’m with Damo. Some one is bound to be offended no matter what you do. However, all publicity is good publicity. As Miley Cyrus could tell you, pushing the boundaries and offending a bundle of people gets more talking about you which is good for sales in the end.
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It’s not sexist, it’s disgusting. Let’s think about what lurks underneath that burger in reality…..yuck. Bad taste.
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A perfect example of an ad in bad taste….in more ways than one!
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I am confused. How can someone be positively engaged by looking at a sandwich coming out of someone’s often flatulent and regularly defecating orifice? Male or female, I don’t believe this ad appeals … unless eating excrement latest Bondi Junction fashion trend?
Methinks their ‘sold out’ report is more to do with it being:
a. at the main pub in BJ
b. being the latest thing to try
c. launching in summer, when BJ swells with half the population of Sydney before and after beachtime.
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sure, you can be offended for the sake of being offended, and
you can take the image literally as a woman excreting as a way
of attaching justification to your offence.
unless you have nothing else to do, and nothing else in your head,
surely there are other issues more worthy of your ‘offence’?
..issues, which are actually big and are important?
I expect that the burger joint owner and their advertising company
is perfectly well aware of the ‘nanny’ society this country now is,
where people whinge about anything and everything, simply because
they have nothing else in their heads and do not have any idea about what
is really important in life, and how fortunate they are to have the lifestyle
and standard of living opportunity they have, unlike billions of other people
around the world.
I expect playing on the prevailing ‘nanny society’ mentality was a factor in the concept and strategy for the ad because they knew just how many would come
out and publicly voice their ‘horror’ at the site of a woman with salad and a pattie
between her buttocks. Big fricken deal! oh my goodness, how shocking!
So, good on them, they were spot-on, and have succeeded in their quest for
publicity.
I hope this ad opens the eyes of advertisers to the potential of playing on the
‘nanny society’ contingent, and this ad is a catalyst for a future wave of ads which
are designed to rile this large proportion of the community.
Bring it on.
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If they really wanted to punish them they should have let them continue running the ad.
Probably would have sent them out of business.
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are they saying there burgers taste like arse?
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Matt you are seriously and pathologically deluded and tragically caught up in the advertising dream construct . If you think a naked woman sitting on a cheeseburger represents the quintessence of erotic and aesthetic beauty you are beyond help. Enjoy your dreams baby.
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No one loves the idea of the nanny state more than tony abbott and cory bernardi
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Is that a bit of hair I can see on the lettuce?
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The ad is not funny. It is embarrassing, degrading, sexist and demoralizing, not to mention absolutely gross. As a woman rocking up to their joint, I would never be able to down their burgers with the image in my head of eating a vagina between the buns. On some level, it would be less demoralizing if they were having a go at men as well (not that I want men objectified), but if you read their other burger descriptions like Juicy Lucy and Double Trouble, you can see that it is all about men’s sexuality and women as toys and objects in a man’s fantasy world. It is like we are not even human or have rights or dignity….and to think people get ticked off when women breast feed in public, yet pretty much showing a vagina/meat between 2 buns quite rauncy is ok? The woman partly responsible for the ad, Laura from goodtie burgers says it is just fun and good humour. I don’t see how that ad is humour. Looks like people are willing to shock, give up their morals and do whatever it takes just to get customers and/or their 15 minutes of fame. If we boycott these places and demand something else, they have to bow to consumer demand. Don’t sell your soul and eat their disgusting burgers. Even if their burgers do taste great, your brain is now sending information to your tongue that what you will be tasting is bodily fluids…..a million bucks could not get me to taste a vagina or a penis between two buns.
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Chris,
Of course it is creating controversy with their ad and with controversy comes publicity, but not all publicity is goos publicity and hopefully this ad has pushed the envelope far enough where consumers start saying enough is enough. They should have left the ad running as I believe as the other person above put it: It would punish them and make them lose customers. It is a big deal because how far can someone push the envelope before it is totally unacceptable. Where is is the line drawn? And a big deal in that I would not want to be sitting at a window seat with this bloody ad hanging over my head and making me gag.
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I know….! How about a hotdog ad where there is some guy with his penis hanging out and offering it to a woman at a baseball game claiming this is the freshest and fun meat in the stadium! That would shock the pants off of the entire male audience. The burger ad is the same thing…..just plain gross and unacceptable. And, I am not a prude as I kind of find the pork on your fork advertising funny.
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Instead of pulling the ad, they should have leant into the controversy and followed it up with a male version for vegetarians (the patty being comprised primarily of nuts).
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