Burger King Has Living Chicken Decide When Her Friends Will Be Eaten

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Gloria the chicken is in charge of deciding how people eat her friends, and she's raising some eyebrows along the way.

A recent Burger King advertising campaign featured a live chicken named Gloria traveling around the country and deciding if locals get to try chicken fries - strips of chicken cooked like French fries - by pecking a bowl that says "yes" or "no."

The new campaign doesn't seem to achieve what it's supposed to - unless it's supposed to remind viewers that they're eating animals. Media outlets from all corners of the web are a bit puzzled.

Slate called the stunt "kind of screwed up" and "not exactly tactful," while Us Weekly described it as "controversial." Ad Age described it as "sadistic." Not unexpectedly, PETA dismissed it as "despicable."

Flickr/Andrew

"So basically, Burger King is sending a live chicken on tour with a bunch of dead chickens all because the company's execs couldn't make up their minds, or thought this would be cute, or something like that," Slate's Alison Griswold wrote.

Whether or not viewers are grossed out by chickens hawking chicken, they probably wouldn't want to hear about what happens to the chickens before they become fries. Most birds, especially when it comes to national fast food chains, are raised in inhumane factory-farming conditions with little to no room to move and face brutal abuse during their short lives.

The company announced on Monday that chicken fries would be added as a permanent part of the Burger King menu, meaning Gloria's traveling days are over. But the ad campaign isn't. The next commercial - set to start airing on Thursday - features a talking chicken scrolling through hens on a Tinder-like app until he finds his perfect match in a pile of french fries.