Burger King Ad — Bizarre Experiment Shows Bullied Whopper Jr. More Important Than Bullied Kid?

Burger King is out to tackle bullies and in doing so they concocted a rather odd, but telling experiment. The folks at Burger King employed teen actors to play various roles of bullies and victims while in the fast-food restaurant’s dining room. They also employed actors to bully a bunch of Whopper Jrs. that were used as part of paying customers’ orders.

Bully a burger you say? How could that possibly prove a thing? Well, first of all, Burger King has hooked up with No.Bully.org to bring awareness to bullying this month, as October is National Bullying Prevention Month. The name of the Burger King anti-bullying campaign ad is “Bullying Junior,” and it starts off with students sharing some heart-wrenching stories about the bullying they have endured.

During these testimonies from the kids, statistics flash on the screen, such as, “30 percent of student worldwide are bullied each year.” From there it breaks out into the Burger King experiment, which Burger King describes as “eye-opening,” according to Fox News.

Now for the experiment that is shown in this ad

Kids, who are actors, are seen in the Burger King dining room and a group of kids is bullying one student, who is also an actor. The kids are picking on a high school senior by first teasing him. Then it escalates to the victim being pushed and during the entire time the student victim is begging for these kids to stop. Then the victim also gets a drink poured over his head as part of this bullying act.

The dining room is filled with regular paying customers, who randomly came in off the street. They have no idea that this is a skit, as far as they are concerned, this is actually a bullying event unfolding in front of them as they are eating their fast-food meals. The majority of the customers in the store are seen glancing over at this kid being picked on, but seemingly ignoring this event despite the pleas from this bullied kid.

The next part of the ad pans to a burger getting bullied — what? Just how does one bully a burger? The ad shows the Burger King kitchen where an actor, who is playing a Burger King staff member, is seen “bullying” a Whopper Jr. by punching the food product and then smashing it.

Several “bullied” Whopper Jr. burgers are served to “unsuspecting customers.” When these random customers unwrapped the beaten up burgers, the video reports the eye-opening statistics.

According to Fox News, “95 percent of the real-life customers reported the bullied Whopper Jr. to the staff.” The video also reports that only 12 percent of the customers stood up to the bullies picking on that teen in the Burger King dining room.

9 News, the local NBC News out of Colorado, suggest this ad just might bring you to tears, they believe the content makes a “powerful” statement on bullying. Even though you know that these kids are actors, the images might still be very disturbing to you. Just the thought of this going on in real-life across the nation is enough to evoke emotions over the skit seen in this Burger King ad.

The moral of this story, or Burger King experiment, seems to be that people are more concerned about their burgers being bullied than an actual teenager being a victim of bullies. The Burger King customers were more apt to report their burgers looking distressed than they were a teenager just a few feet away from them begging for the bullying to stop. You can watch the full Burger King ad below on the YouTube video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnKPEsbTo9s

[Featured Image by Martin Good/Shutterstock/AP Images]