Burger King pulls Yoo Hae-jin ads amid 'The Assassin' controversy

Burger King has ended its promotional campaign featuring actor Yoo Hae-jin as controversy over the film "The Assassin" intensified, with some consumers calling for a boycott of products he endorses. The campaign wrapped about two weeks after the product's launch. Burger King said the decision followed a pre-established schedule and was unrelated to the recent controversy.

According to industry sources Tuesday, Burger King launched its autumn menu item, the Truffle Mushroom Whopper, last month and had been promoting it under a concept combining Yoo's name with the word "new" — styled as "New-Haejin Teo-Meo-Wa."

Posts and advertisements featuring Yoo are now being removed from Burger King's official SNS accounts and stores.

In a notice on its official website, Burger King said all its campaign models are hired on one-time contracts and that "the scheduled activities for the Truffle Mushroom Whopper model have concluded."

The campaign with Yoo is understood to have ended Wednesday. The product had launched Sept. 16 — about two weeks earlier.

Some observers have suggested the campaign may have been cut short due to the fallout from the film controversy.

Since "The Assassin" opened, calls to boycott products endorsed by Yoo have circulated online. Protest comments appeared under his advertisement videos, and some users demanded he be replaced as a brand model.

Burger King, however, maintained that the end of Yoo's campaign had nothing to do with the controversy.

"Contract periods for advertising models and campaign run times vary case by case," a Burger King official said. "This campaign also ran according to a schedule established in advance. That schedule has no connection to any particular issue."

Burger King typically signs one-off contracts with models on a per-product basis rather than retaining exclusive brand ambassadors. This year, the chain cast actor Lee Jung-jae for its Quattro Pepper Cube Steak Whopper campaign in January, tapped actor Noh Yoon-seo for the Crispier launched the same month, and recruited Choo Sung-hoon as the model for its Garlic Bulgogi Maximum in March.

Still, some observers note that the advertising exposure period for this campaign was comparatively short against past Burger King product campaigns, and that posts mentioning or featuring Yoo have been deleted from the chain's official Instagram and YouTube channels — a step they describe as unusual.