FILE PHOTO: KFC logo is seen in a restaurant located in a communist-era building in Warsaw, Poland October 2, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
(Reuters) – KFC apologized for an advertisement in Australia that shows two young boys staring at a woman’s breasts, after calls from a local campaign group to boycott the fast-food giant over the ad it called “sexist”, the Australian Associated Press reported.
The 15-second ad, which is still on KFC Australia’s YouTube channel, shows a woman adjust her breasts as she looks at her reflection in the window of a parked car.
The car’s window then rolls down to show two young boys looking at the woman’s breasts, before she smiles and says, “did someone say KFC?”
“We apologize if anyone was offended by our latest commercial. Our intention was not to stereotype women and young boys in a negative light,” Yum! Brands Inc’s (YUM.N) KFC said in a statement here to the Australian Associated Press.
It was not immediately clear if KFC would take any action on the usage of ad. The video has garnered more than 28,000 views on the company’s YouTube channel.
KFC’s response came after Collective Shout, a group which campaigns against the objectification of women, condemned the advertisement and said here it was a “regression to tired and archaic stereotypes where young women are sexually objectified for male pleasure.”
“Ads like this reinforce the false idea that we can’t expect better from boys. It is another manifestation of the ‘boys will be boys’ trope, hampering our ability to challenge sexist ideas which contribute to harmful behavior towards women and girls, the group’s spokeswoman, Melinda Liszewski, said.
While many did not approve of the ad, several others took to Twitter to label the ad “funny” and said there was no need for the company to apologize.
KFC Australia did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Kirsten Donovan