KFC’s dancing chicken tops ad complaints
A VIDEO of a chicken dancing to a rap song was Britain’s most complained about TV advert last year.
The commercial for KFC drew 755 complaints on the basis that it was ‘disrespectful’ to chickens and ‘distressing’ for vegetarians and vegans.
Campaign group Animal Equality argued that the fast food chain was guilty of airbrushing the cruelty out of chicken farming.
The Whole Chicken advert features a chicken apparently strutting around a warehouse to X Gon’ Give It To Ya by DMX. The aim is to underline that KFC products are 100 per cent chicken.
It topped the complaints league in an annual survey by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The watchdog said KFC has a history of controversial cam- paigns. A 2005 ad featuring people singing with their mouths full is the most complained about ever, racking up 1,671.
The ASA said: ‘This year, KFC’s ad received complaints that it was disrespectful to chickens and distressing for vegetarians, vegans and children, since it depicted a chicken who was heading for slaughter.’
In this case, the ASA rejected the complaints, ruling that it was ‘unlikely’ the ad would cause distress or serious or widespread offence as there were no explicit references to animal slaughter.
In fact, for the ten ads that drew most complaints last year, the ASA either did not uphold complaints or, in the case of two, did not carry out a formal investigation because they were withdrawn.
The dancing businessmen in hot pants featured in Moneysupermarket.com TV ads have long been a cause of offence. Last year there were 455 complaints about one version showing businessmen and builders dancing provocatively.