{"id":43516,"date":"2025-03-28T09:58:43","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T13:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=43516"},"modified":"2025-03-28T09:58:43","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T13:58:43","slug":"all-hail-the-gravy-kfc-ad-sparks-outrage-for-mocking-baptism-and-promoting-cult-imagery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/03\/all-hail-the-gravy-kfc-ad-sparks-outrage-for-mocking-baptism-and-promoting-cult-imagery.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;All Hail the Gravy?&#8221; KFC Ad Sparks Outrage For Mocking Baptism and Promoting Cult Imagery"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_43519\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-43519\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/03\/KFC_credit-KFC.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-43519\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/03\/KFC_credit-KFC.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-43519\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">KFC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A new KFC commercial airing in the United Kingdom and Ireland has stirred widespread outrage, with many Christians accusing the fast-food giant of mocking the sacred Christian rite of baptism and glamorizing cult-like behavior.<\/p>\n<p>The two-minute advertisement, <em>&#8220;Believe Part 2: All Hail the Gravy,&#8221;<\/em> begins with a young man wandering through the woods. He discovers a chicken and then stumbles upon a mysterious group of people marching through the forest carrying a giant golden egg. The scene climaxes with the man being carried into a pool of steaming gravy by a female character and submerged in what resembles a ritualistic ceremony. When he emerges, he is &#8220;reborn&#8221; as a crispy KFC Mini Fillet to the cheering of the crowd.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SVHHQKmzYOc?si=biagr27cqcAcV-8w\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Many viewers are not laughing. Nearly 600 formal complaints have been filed with the UK&#8217;s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), with concerns ranging from its potentially disturbing content to its perceived mockery of baptism. &#8220;We&#8217;re currently assessing these to establish whether there are grounds for further action,&#8221; a spokesperson for the ASA told DecisionMarketing. &#8220;But just to be clear, we&#8217;ve not launched an investigation at this stage.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Critics argue that the imagery goes far beyond harmless fun. On Marketing\/Beat, a UK-based advertising forum, users called the ad &#8220;disgusting,&#8221; a &#8220;disgrace,&#8221; and &#8220;beyond the pale.&#8221; Some accused KFC of glamorizing cultism, cannibalism, and even grooming. One user summarized the public sentiment bluntly: &#8220;This isn&#8217;t creative. It&#8217;s deeply offensive.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In a press release, KFC UK described the ad as &#8220;an odyssey through the mystical woodland&#8221; and a &#8220;modern-day fable&#8221; meant to celebrate the passion fans have for the brand&#8217;s gravy. According to KFC, the golden egg acts as a &#8220;guiding light&#8221; as followers parade through the forest, eventually leading to the gravy lake baptism. The ad was intended to &#8220;bring an entertaining antidote to this dull, chaotic world,&#8221; said Monica Silic, KFC&#8217;s chief marketing officer for the UK and Ireland.<\/p>\n<p>But for Christians, the commercial appears to tread on sacred ground. Baptism, a profound symbol of death, burial, and resurrection in Christ, is central to the Christian faith. To see it portrayed in a tongue-in-cheek ad for fried chicken has many believers wondering how far brands are willing to go in pursuit of attention.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What KFC is calling lighthearted, millions see as sacred,&#8221; one UK pastor commented online. &#8220;This ad doesn&#8217;t inspire joy\u2014it mocks something deeply holy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As of now, the ASA has not confirmed whether a formal investigation will be launched, but the volume of complaints suggests this controversy is far from over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new KFC commercial airing in the United Kingdom and Ireland has stirred widespread outrage, with many Christians accusing the fast-food giant of mocking the sacred Christian rite of baptism and glamorizing cult-like behavior. The two-minute advertisement, &#8220;Believe Part 2: All Hail the Gravy,&#8221; begins with a young man wandering through the woods. He discovers&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":43519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-television"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&quot;All Hail the Gravy?&quot; KFC Ad Sparks Outrage For Mocking Baptism and Promoting Cult Imagery<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"KFC&#039;s new ad sparks outrage as Christians accuse it of mocking baptism and glamorizing cult behavior.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/03\/all-hail-the-gravy-kfc-ad-sparks-outrage-for-mocking-baptism-and-promoting-cult-imagery.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&quot;All Hail the Gravy?&quot; KFC Ad Sparks Outrage For Mocking Baptism and Promoting Cult Imagery\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"KFC&#039;s new ad sparks outrage as Christians accuse it of mocking baptism and glamorizing cult behavior.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/03\/all-hail-the-gravy-kfc-ad-sparks-outrage-for-mocking-baptism-and-promoting-cult-imagery.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-03-28T13:58:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/03\/KFC_credit-KFC.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jonathan Reed\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\"All Hail the Gravy?\" KFC Ad Sparks Outrage For Mocking Baptism and Promoting Cult Imagery","description":"KFC's new ad sparks outrage as Christians accuse it of mocking baptism and glamorizing cult behavior.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/03\/all-hail-the-gravy-kfc-ad-sparks-outrage-for-mocking-baptism-and-promoting-cult-imagery.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\"All Hail the Gravy?\" KFC Ad Sparks Outrage For Mocking Baptism and Promoting Cult Imagery","og_description":"KFC's new ad sparks outrage as Christians accuse it of mocking baptism and glamorizing cult behavior.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/03\/all-hail-the-gravy-kfc-ad-sparks-outrage-for-mocking-baptism-and-promoting-cult-imagery.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2025-03-28T13:58:43+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/03\/KFC_credit-KFC.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Jonathan Reed","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/03\/all-hail-the-gravy-kfc-ad-sparks-outrage-for-mocking-baptism-and-promoting-cult-imagery.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/03\/all-hail-the-gravy-kfc-ad-sparks-outrage-for-mocking-baptism-and-promoting-cult-imagery.html","name":"\"All Hail the Gravy?\" KFC Ad Sparks Outrage For Mocking Baptism and Promoting Cult Imagery","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/03\/all-hail-the-gravy-kfc-ad-sparks-outrage-for-mocking-baptism-and-promoting-cult-imagery.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/03\/all-hail-the-gravy-kfc-ad-sparks-outrage-for-mocking-baptism-and-promoting-cult-imagery.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/03\/KFC_credit-KFC.jpg","datePublished":"2025-03-28T13:58:43+00:00","dateModified":"2025-03-28T13:58:43+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d"},"description":"KFC's new ad sparks outrage as Christians accuse it of mocking baptism and glamorizing cult behavior.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/03\/all-hail-the-gravy-kfc-ad-sparks-outrage-for-mocking-baptism-and-promoting-cult-imagery.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/03\/all-hail-the-gravy-kfc-ad-sparks-outrage-for-mocking-baptism-and-promoting-cult-imagery.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/03\/all-hail-the-gravy-kfc-ad-sparks-outrage-for-mocking-baptism-and-promoting-cult-imagery.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/03\/KFC_credit-KFC.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/03\/KFC_credit-KFC.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"KFC"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/03\/all-hail-the-gravy-kfc-ad-sparks-outrage-for-mocking-baptism-and-promoting-cult-imagery.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"&#8220;All Hail the Gravy?&#8221; 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