If you’ve been into boutique burger outfit Murder Burger on Ponsonby Road for a sneaky bite to eat, you’ll know there’s an underlying tongue-in-cheek sense of humour about its cuisine.

In short, vegetarians need not apply.

For the workies at the joint sport t-shirts that scream “MEAT IS MURDER” as they deliver your tasty dead animal to you between two soft, fluffy pieces of bun. Hell, even the logo features a furry cat between the words “Murder” and “Burger”.

(Do not adjust your set – cats do not appear on the menu.)

But that confrontational approach to carnivorous tastes has ruffled a few feathers, and Murder Burger’s Auckland billboard promoting its use of free range chicken (see below, courtesy of Consortium) has had an execution order.

The billboard’s image was judged too shocking. Well smack my gob and hand me a Danish pastry, but I’d hazard there are far worse things done to animals in the name of meat eating than what’s shown on the hoarding. Perhaps those offended could take a tour of an abbatoir for a dose of common sense, or kill their own kettle of fish before frying it.

What’s more, the billboard has been chopped by the billboard company in question, not the Advertising Standards Authority. Naturally, complaints would indeed be made about such a confronting image (people complain about everything from “subliminal” messages that only they can see, to Helen Clark’s teeth being digitally corrected), but it’s reality, and if you can’t handle reality, it’s time to step off the Meat Train.

Murder Burger’s aim in erecting the billboard was to draw attention to its free-range and cage-free stance – something that extends right to the eggs used in their mayonnaise, and something that may come as a surprise to any wary consumers.

Murder Burger director Tony Moffat said it was a decision that was largely driven by taste, although ethical concerns are a factor.

“It all comes back to a better tasting burger,” Mr Moffat said, adding that a push for locally farmed meat rather than imported is also driving demand.

He said that while the billboard might shock people, it’s not a bad thing to remind consumers that not all chickens enjoy an idyllic lifestyle like the one featured in the billboard. (Until its demise…)

For his part, Mr Moffat is surprised that the billboard has had the chop. Murder Burger boffins went to the trouble of running the creative past a variety of individuals before going with it.

"We're not there to offend," he said.

What price freedom of image (rather than speech) and common sense? That was the question we were asking last year when one agency’s “Whaka” billboard also got the chop, leaving punters asking why a linguistic pun should be outlawed while gingas are still being called Fanta Pants.

Heaven forbid we should submit to the fundies, to the overly sensitive, to the rationally impaired.

By the by, the artwork for the beheaded chicken was all done in PhotoShop and no chickens were harmed in its making. Or in the making of this blog post. Not that writing about advertising and marketing usually puts chickens in harm’s path, but you never know.

iSite agency sales manager Matt Williams said the billboard would ordinarily not have gone up in the first place, but the Christmas rush and a need to get everything processed quickly saw the creative overlooked.

"If it was in an edgy magazine with a relevant readership, that would be one thing," Mr Williams said. "But billboards are mass media so they have to be relevant to the mass medium they communicate to."

He adds that the billboard was a freebie as a "goodwill gesture", organised through the Media Counsel. iSite's usual practice is to approve all creative before it goes up.

Anyway, here's the offending billboard: