Burger King has now withdrawn the advertisement which was across three of their Spanish stores. The image depicted the Hindu Goddess Lakshmiji sitting on a ham sandwich with the phrase "A snack which is sacred", in Spanish.

Burger King Corp. provided the following statement:

"Burger King Corp. values and respects all of its guests as well as the communities we serve. This in-store advertisement was running to support a limited-time only local promotion for three restaurants in Spain and was not intended to offend anyone. Out of respect for the Hindu community, the in-store advertisement has been removed from the restaurants."

However, NHSF (UK) still finds this unacceptable and sees it as a complete attack on Hindu Dharma, with no regards to the sentiments and feelings towards the followers of our faith.

The corporation is no stranger to controversy surrounding their marketing campaigns. Earlier this year, they offended Mexican’s with their ‘Texican Whoppers’ campaign. In 2008, they also hit controversy regarding their ‘Virgin Whoopers’ Campaign. As reported in Advertising Age (Dec 8, 2008), the marketing company who designed this campaign was Crispin Porter & Bogusky, whose Co-Executive Creative Director said, “Advertising is designed to be talked about, and hopefully people notice it, I'm not surprised that people are writing about [Whopper Virgins], positive or negative, because that's the design of how we approach things as an agency. We go into every project thinking: Is it an idea that the press - and not necessarily the advertising press - will write about? If it's not, then maybe it's not such a good idea."

NHSF (UK) is calling on Burger King to donate the money raised in the stores to a charity which will have a pro-Hindu cause. This is a campaign which NHSF (UK) will be pursuing and be committed to, until a suitable solution is agreed upon. 

NHSF (UK) is the largest Hindu Student body outside India and as such represents the wider interest of World Hindus. We ask Burger King to sit with us to gain more wisdom about our faith, and it will be only fitting for it to donate their offending profits to a worthy charitable cause dear to Hindu hearts. We trust that in its own interest BK will respond positively if it wants to engage in meaningful dialogue with Hindus.

We hope that Lakshmiji, the Goddess of Wealth, brings them the wealth of knowledge to understand the values and traditions of Hindu Dharma rather than exploit them for vibrant and colourful images to use on a marketing campaign.