The below article appeared in PR Week and features comment from Anna Geffert, Women in PR President and Committee Member Roxy Kalha.

Lazy, misogynistic, inverted trolling, tone deaf – Burger King tweet about ‘woman in the kitchen’ leaves foul taste

PR professionals have cautioned brands about using provocative language about inequality – particularly on International Women’s Day – following Burger King UK’s controversial tweet about woman belonging in the kitchen.

A print ad about Burger King’s new culinary scholarship programme

Brands should tread carefully when communicating about sensitive issues such as women’s rights and racial equality.

That’s been the inescapable lesson of two high-profile gaffes in the past week. Less than a week after former Beattie Communications chair Gordon Beattie resigned following a poorly-worded LinkedIn post that used provocative language, Burger King has posted its own howler on Twitter, according to communications leaders.

On International Women’s Day, the fast-food chain tweeted: ‘Women belong in the kitchen.’ This was followed by a threaded tweet saying: ‘If they want to, of course. Yet only 20 per cent of chefs are women. We’re on a mission to change the gender ratio in the restaurant industry by empowering female employees with the opportunity to pursue a culinary career.’

And a third tweet, two hours later: ‘We are proud to be launching a new scholarship programme which will help female Burger King employees pursue their culinary dreams!’

At the time of writing, the post has been retweeted and quote-tweeted more than 200,000 times, and rapidly growing.

The social media activity was supported by print ads providing more context, as tweeted by Fer Machado, the global chief marketing officer at Burger King’s parent company, RBI.

A spokesperson for Burger King UK, which is known for its clever use of social media, told PRWeek that the initial post had been misconstrued.

“It was our intention to undermine an outdated stereotype about women and reclaim the terminology, in order to highlight a big problem in the restaurant industry – that women occupy only 20 per cent of chef positions in UK restaurants today, which we believe is offensive. The campaign’s aim is to continue the important conversation around gender inequality within the culinary field.

“We have teamed up with culinary schools to create a scholarship programme for our female team members to help them achieve their career aspirations.”

‘Intention lost in a sea of outrage’

Burger King’s post may have had good intentions, but many on social media did not bite past the opening tweet before reacting, often in an unsavoury way.

“It’s a real shame that an initiative that actually sounds like an interesting move for Burger King was announced in such a lazy and clumsy way,” The Romans managing director Roxy Kalha told PRWeek.

“Positive appropriation of a really offensive and highly emotive slur was shown, last week by the reaction to Gordon Beattie’s terrible post, as something that people, thankfully, aren’t here for. Has the BK social media manager been hiding under a rock? Whoever posted this is so out of touch with the current climate and is just going for the Piers Morgan style click-baity approach to get numbers. Well those numbers are now going to come and bite BK in their flame-grilled ass.”

Kalha said the post was particularly tone-deaf as the ‘joke’ was a reality for so many women who have either lost their jobs or had to rethink their careers during the coronavirus pandemic.

This was a point echoed by Hera Communications managing director Anna Geffert, who is also the president of Women in PR in the UK.

“Insensitive is being kind. It’s just a rather lazy, and risky, way of scoring social media points. Given all of the research demonstrating the negative impact this pandemic has had on women, there is surely a better way of communicating support and help than peddling a dated misogynistic joke? We are in comms, after all.”

Is it worth the cost?

Alicia Solanki, deputy MD, brand, at Ketchum, described the post as “vacuous clickbait”.

“It gets the chat going, but not without a cost,” she said. “And therein lies the problem – peddling old tropes, even if it’s to flip them on their head, gives airtime to outdated views. Plus, how many people will actually click to read the rest? Come on, Burger King.”

Jessica Pardoe, a senior PR at Source PR, questioned whether ‘social fame’ was worth the risk of damaging Burger King’s brand, describing the tweet as “tack and lazy marketing”.

She added: “There are a million other ways that Burger King could have conveyed the message, but it chose to use a dated and for the most part offensive phrase that’s long been used to devalue and ridicule women… not all publicity is good publicity, and there are much better ways to communicate than to take cheap shots for ‘likes’ and completely miss the point of your message.”

It’s not just female leaders who were left with a foul taste in their mouth. Taylor Herring managing partner and chief operating officer Peter Mountstevens told PRWeek that “inverted trolling” on International Women’s Day is tone-deaf and brands should avoid relying on their audience to read beyond an opening tweet.

“There is enough provocation around inequality on IWD without this kind of inflammatory clickbait and the message à la women chefs is lost in the melee around a tweet which is far too pleased with itself,” he added.