--- title: Belgian Royal Family Upset Over Burger King Ads About King description: The Belgian Royal Family is not happy that Burger King is using King Philippe as a marketing ploy for their new Belgian outpost. canonical: https://time.com/4797921/belgian-royal-family-burger-king/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-30T17:14:15.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:44:00.267Z og:title: Belgian Royals Are Not Happy Burger King Used the King in This Ad og:description: "We disapprove of this approach" og:url: https://time.com/4797921/belgian-royal-family-burger-king/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Belgian Royals Are Not Happy Burger King Used the King in This Ad twitter:description: "We disapprove of this approach" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # The Belgian Royal Family Is Not Happy That Burger King Put Their Actual King in an Ad > Sponsored content. 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The fast food giant, which is opening its first output in Belgium at the end of June, has launched an ad via a website called [whoistheking.be](http://whoistheking.be/) that asks people to choose between King Philippe and Burger King’s mascot. Those who choose real-life Belgian King Philippe are then queried again with the rejoinder, “Are you sure? He won’t be the one to cook your fries” while those that choose Burger King don’t receive any more prompts. According to the [_BBC_](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40073285), royal spokesperson Pierre Emmanuel de Bauw said that the use of the king’s image needs to be approved by the royal family; however, Burger King opted to use a cartoon image of King Philippe. “We disapprove of this approach,” de Bauw said. “Since it is for commercial purposes, we would not have given our authorization.” Burger Brands Belgium spokeswoman Shana Van den Broeck said that the chain is considering whether to adapt to the ad. “We are deliberating on how to proceed,” she said, according to [NBC](http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/30/we-are-not-amused-belgian-monarchy-angered-by-burger-king.html). “Should we make a change to our campaign we would communicate that.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4797921/belgian-royal-family-burger-king/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4797921/belgian-royal-family-burger-king/"},"headline":"The Belgian Royal Family Is Not Happy That Burger King Put Their Actual King in an Ad","datePublished":"2017-05-30T17:14:15.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:44:00.267Z","description":"\"We disapprove of this approach\"","url":"https://time.com/4797921/belgian-royal-family-burger-king/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Bizarre","Belgium","Burger King","food and drink"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cady Lang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cady-lang/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4797921/belgian-royal-family-burger-king/","name":"The Belgian Royal Family Is Not Happy That Burger King Put Their Actual King in an Ad"}}]}] ```