We’re all used to brands getting a little extra with their Pride campaigns. The line between showing support for the LGBTQIA+ community and showing off for attention does tend to get a little blurry, and this effort from Burger King’s Austrian arm is… okay, I don’t actually know what this is.
In a post on Instagram, the brand unveiled the ‘Pride Whopper’ it’ll be selling until June 20th. It’s the same as a normal burger, except with ‘two equal buns’, meaning you can get it either with two top halves of a burger bun, or two bottom halves.
You can possibly see where this is going. The Pride Whopper comes as two tops or two bottoms.
It’s not entirely clear whether this was an intentional innuendo or an inadvertent oversight. The reaction on Twitter has been voluminous but mixed, with some users pointing out that it’s a bit crass, to say the least, and others making the point that, if we’re all honest with ourselves, the two-tops burger does look pretty good. It's possible this belongs in our round-up of design fails that were so bad they were actually good, I can't quite make up my mind.
It’s not clear how you even express a preference with regards to the burger – whether you’re supposed to just go into your local branch of an Austrian Burger King and ask for “the bottoms burger, bitte.” Not that you would – as several users on Twitter have pointed out, you don’t have to be queer to know that pairing two bottoms is never going to work out.
I’ve certainly seen more tasteful Pride campaigns in 2022. Particularly enjoyable is this year’s rather wholesome effort from LEGO; titled ‘The A-Z of Awesome’, it’s inviting LGBTQIA+ fans of LEGO from around the world to spell out the alphabet with their own custom builds.
Google, meanwhile, has unveiled an ‘LGBTQ Artists Collection’ of Pride-themed backgrounds for its Chrome browser., which have been blended into the Chrome interface for a decidedly classed-up browsing experience. Featured artists include Derek Abella, Carlos Apont, Sofie Birkin, Ohni Lisle and Tallulah Fontaine.
I have to say, to any brands who happen to be reading, if you want to support queer people this Pride, giving them money for their art is a time-honoured and welcome way to do it. Most will probably appreciate that a lot more than the prospect of being topped by a burger.
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