Burger King has ended an advertising campaign for a new product featuring Yoo Hae-jin, a lead actor of "Assassins," a film at the center of a historical distortion controversy. The move comes about two weeks after the product launched on the 16th of last month.
According to industry sources on the 6th, Burger King launched its fall menu item, the Truffle Mushroom Whopper, last month and promoted it under the concept "New-Haejin TeuMeoWa," combining actor Yoo Hae-jin's name with the word "new," while "TeuMeoWa" is the Korean abbreviation for the Truffle Mushroom Whopper. A boycott movement then emerged targeting products advertised by Yoo, who stars in "Assassins."
Burger King recently posted a notice on its official website saying the promotional schedule for the Truffle Mushroom Whopper model had concluded.
Burger King had also used Yoo as an advertising model in June, when it launched two summer limited-edition items, the Boiling Seafood Burger.
The chain typically signs one-off contracts with advertising models for individual products rather than retaining a brand ambassador.
This year, Burger King featured actor Lee Jung-jae in a January campaign for the Quattro Pepper Cube Steak Whopper and actor Noh Yoon-seo for The Crisper, released the same month. In March, it selected Choo Sung-hoon as the model for its Garlic Bulgogi Maximum campaign.
"The new product campaign with Yoo Hae-jin is wrapping up according to the schedule originally planned, and it was not affected by recent developments," a Burger King official said. The official added that the company could not disclose whether the modeling contract itself had been terminated.
Meanwhile, a protest was held the same day in front of the Jongno-gu, Seoul headquarters of BKR, the operator of Burger King in Korea, demanding that screenings of "Assassins" be halted and that the advertising contract with Yoo be withdrawn.
