Advertising Is Dead. Hardee's Killed It.

I have never taken a class in advertising or copywriting.  I've never produced a 30 second spot.  I've never worked on a print campaign.  I'm probably not qualified to comment on this ad or the state of traditional advertising.

But I'm going to do it anyway.

As predicted by some—advertising has been reduced to the equivalent of pulling it's pants down and slapping you in the face with it's private parts.  I'm sorry that I'm being so graphic—and I don't even like including this clip on my blog.  No I'm not the target audience for the ad, my guess is that the target is 17+ year old men.

Apparently Hardee's isn't running the ad anymore on TV, but thanks to the Long Tail and advertising's insatiable appetite for buzz, we can stil bask in the glory of this masterpiece on YouTube.  Interestingly enough, the version of the spot that I saw on TV included the Hardee's logo at the end, not Carl's Jr.  Either way, it's a mess.

But like I said, I'm not the target audience here.  So, to the young fast food eating men out in the world—does this speak to you?  To quote my personal hero, General Maximus Decimus Meridius, "Are you not entertained"?

Comments

[Tim Brunelle]

David -

Uhh, wow.

I'm trying to imagine the research that led to this idea. And the strategic conversations that lead to this idea. And the creative concepting that lead to this idea. And the storyboarding that led to this idea. And the presentation (what other ideas were shown and found lacking?) that lead to this idea. (At least a couple months of billable hours at Mendelsohn Zien, right?)

Now I'm thinking about the production process. All those calls and meetings. How many prod cos looked at the boards and passed? How many submitted bids?

Then the casting. The rehearsals. And the shoot. And then the days of edits and post.

This idea lived for weeks. Dozens of people seemed to think it was okay enough to continue working on it.

And then the client walks in and says, "Yes!" How many people at Hardees/Carl's Jr were involved along the way?

This spot reminds me of a Jack In The Box spot where a guy playing the new marketing director funds production for a spot just like this one...then Jack walks in and says, "What were you thinking?"

- Tim

[Herb]

so i watched it twice. what? she's hot.

and you know what, it's a bad spot. but aimed at the right target...i wonder if it worked? because we need to remove ourselves from the cocoon of awesomeness we live in and realize that...well...this might have been disruptive enough to the right target.

oh we of high culture and good tasting wine and cheese will hate this...

ok - look. a) she's hot b) I tried my best as the d's advocate...

[Katie]

The part that I don't like is that it has no relation to the actual product being served. (Aside from a very loose "flat buns" connection.)

Unrelated and trying to hard for attention is my take.

Besides, is it really accurate to equate a really thin person with a fast food restaurant?!!

[Mikej]

Lets go back a little bit further here. bad ad... but....why would you want a flat bun in the first place. Who cares about the research for the ad. Wheres the research for a flat bun.
Marketing... marketing itself

[gabby]

I'll tell you exactly how the conversation went:

A bunch of gen-xers were sitting in a conference room, bored, uninspired--when talk turns to favorite music videos of the '80s.

"Hey, you know, 'Hot for Teacher' was a great video!"

And then it all went downhill from there.

[DA]

I think gabby nailed this on the head. The term for it is called borrowed interest. Someone said "dude, let's take the best from Sir Mix A Lot's Butt song and Van Halen's Hot For Teacher and do an ad.

Genius.

Herb, I'm really glad you took the "we're too elite" angle. You bring up a god point. But guess what. I would actually eat a flat bun burger. I just thought the ad was lame. Not offensive—just lame.

Like I said, I'm not the target here, but honestly—the ad just seems lame. Or maybe Van Halen and Sir Mix Alot are cool again? I could be wrong.

[David Sanchez]

I believe is fairly effective vis-à-vis DISRUPTIVE IDEAS. After all working on a i-shop 52% owned by Omnicom Group Inc (NYSE: OMC) wont make you feel strange about advertising nowadays – My favorite disruptive “shop” – TBWA. Maybe its "sista's" - BBDO and DDB. Ogilvy only outside the US.

[DA]

David,

Given the disruption angle—and the ad was pulled off the air...Do you think this was intentional? Was the aim all along to create controversy so people would talk about Hardees the way I am doing so here?

What do you think? I'm asking sincerely. I always wonder what the motives are behind campaign idea like this.

[Peter Kim]

DA - to your question about intentional controversy, I think the answer is yes. Their parent company did the same thing two years ago with Carl's Jr. and Paris Hilton. I didn't check the 10K but you'd think that the formula of sex + burgers delivered a net positive result in the past because they're doing it again. They pulled that one off the air too.

We can dub this WOM tactic the "too hot for TV" demand generation approach. Seems to work.

[DA]

We can dub this WOM tactic the "too hot for TV"

Peter,

I think that's perfect. OK, I agree with you. It's probably an intentional tactic and to your point, maybe they did it again because it yielded results. (will we see this term in a Forrester report? "too hot for TV" is a great label.

Is this fast becoming a popular tactic for brands that have lost momentum?

Maybe my headline isn't too far off? Maybe "too hot for TV marketing" is becoming the new advertising?

[Jon King]

As the father of a budding teenage daughter who is just starting to measure herself against what the media denotes as perfect, I have had enough of this instant flash sexual imagery. It's a cop-out from doing something really creative.

[DA]

Jon

How does this make you feel about marketers? Interesting, while Peter Kim raises a great point about the effectiveness about "too hot for tv" tactics—you highlight the potential cost. Marketers themselves take a hit. That's my opinion, I could be wrong.

I've got another word for this tactic. "gimmick marketing". I won't disagree that gimmick's aren't effective. But sometimes using them extracts a toll that's not always obvious at first.

[Noah Mittman]

I think Peter nailed it: this pattern of 1. shock with a wide-market ad and then pull it, 2. make it (or an extended "not for television" version) available on youtube, etc., 3. watch as WOM spread due to argument over style and appropriateness.

It rings of "pranking the networks" or getting away with something, and even if the content of the ad is bad I can see that aspect of it resonating with a lot of their target audience.

[Christopher Fahey]

This comes down to a basic ethical challenge that we who design customer experiences face increasingly in our jobs: Shall we contemptuously exploit the worst in our audience, or shall we try to appeal to their sense of wonder, intelligence, and dignity?

Too often, marketers choose the former instead of the latter, to make a quick splash through shock value or through the easy-hit appeal of juvenile humor or even by simply degrading human beings on camera for us to watch.

This ad immediately made me think of the movie Idiocracy, where Carl's Jr. is a major player in a horrific future utterly dominated by media just like this commercial. I've just compared this ad to the Idiocracy on my blog, and have more to say about treating customers with respect.

http://www.graphpaper.com/2007/09-14_idiocracy-is-reality

Thanks for calling attention to this trend, David.

[RJ]

No. :) As part of the generation they're marketing to, I'm not enticed by this ad. In truth, I hate just about every ad that Hardee's / Carl's junior puts out...they're all very tasteless, just like this. The theme of having their sandwhiches fall onto the screen with a disgusting "splat" sound at the end is itself enough to suggest greasy indigestion and totally turn me off to eating there.

They featured an ad once that showed a baby in the uterus complaining about the jalapeno peppers his mother had eaten. He used lots of thug slang and at one point grabbed the inside of the uterus and tugged on it. It was disgusting.

Another featured a dirty diner where a customer complained about a dirty spoon and saw the waitress spit on it and clean it on her apron. The catch line was "good food without the Marge factor." Even though they were trying to make the point that their food wasn't gross, they still associated their name with something disgusting and un-appetizing.

I'm sure that Carl's Junior / Hardee's food is just as good (or better) than McDonalds or Burger King or Wendy's, but while I'm happy to eat at those three I'll go out of my way to avoid Carl's/Hardees, simply because the ads have made me feel so nauseated. They've equated their brand with low class humor and general disgust, and I can't imagine anyone who wants to associate themselves with those ideas.

[Jason Falls]

I would imagine the audacity and awfulness of this is the direct result of wanting to standout, i.e., get people like David Armano to blog about it. Mission accomplished.

Lord, I hope that was the mission, because that's just not right.

[Paul McEnany]

ahhh! Come on Grandpa! Maybe it's not clever, but that girl is smokin' hot. :)

[CK]

Seems a case of the agency and client saying "we've got a teenage target + they like rap + um, they like girls...voila!" Not original but perhaps effective.

I see so much lame advertising that I wonder why this one got to you (actually I prefer this one to the Hilton one, though that's not saying much being I'm just so tired of Paris ;-).

If you want to see the lamest ads that award would go to Dow Chemical Corp...and yet the industry hails them for their brilliant, cinematic 'human element' masterpiece (all the while they've never cleaned up the messes that, um, kill humans). Yeah, that's the campaign that bothers me.

Hey, what's your take on the "sexy" Clearasil ads? Those have ruffled some feathers (disclaimer: I like the Clearasil spots).

[Eloy Zuniga Jr.]

It's so sad as he clicks the play button yet again.

[DA]

CK,

I guess the reason I'm taking issue with this ad is that it sums up what's wrong with the industry.

It's taking the easy road. Put up something lame, not particularly creative but in your face so people will talk about it for the wrong reasons. I'm actually not even offended by this ad, I find it to be dull and predictable, and not even funny, entertaining or remotely relevant.

Will it be effective? Maybe. But how does this make the ad industry look in the end? From my perspective, this looks like "shout louder" desperation tactics. If you drop your pants on a crowded street, people will stop and look. They'll probably also talk about you to others.

And inevitably they'll think there is something wrong with you. I think there is something wrong with advertising. And this is just as good a poster child as any.

[Clay Parker Jones]

As a burger-eating, Spike-TV-watching 26 year-old-guy, I have to admit that I've watched this ad at least three times.

I love Sir Mix-A-Lot. I love the Baby Got Back Video. And I love burgers on toast. And I think a butt-minus grade is hilarious. And the girl was hot.

And CK, yeah, I love those Clearasil ads. I like it when people like to have a little fun with sex. We don't always have to be so prudish.

[Joe Szabo]

they took a nice insight (flat buns) and did a horrendously bad job at executing it. classic example of a brand manager wanting to be hip with the kids and not allowing the agency to use creative license.

this ad is purely client-driven; it must be. if it isn't then I don't think the ad agency will be in business much longer.

"poor-taste" is a word that describes the ad for me, which is not the best connotation when thinking of food.

[Tyler Hellard]

There seems to be too much over thinking going on in this thread. In my opinion, it's a good ad. Not great. Certainly not original. But it gets the job done.

1. It's clever. It kind of pokes fun at the Sir Mix-A-Lot original, but flips it.

2. It's funny. White guys rapping about flat asses? That's funny shit.

3. It's memorable. And, apparently, talk worthy.

Do I care if my burger's buns are flat? Nope. But this is fast food, and like Coke vs. Pepsi - there's really no way to position one as better than the other. Top-of-mind through memorable advertising is really what you're striving for. Something like this stands as much a chance of entering pop-cult consciousness as anything else these days.

Do I love it? Not really. Does it work? I think so.

[DA]

Tyler,

good point about over thinking. Only thing I can say is that I definitely did not over think this post. I wrote it minutes after seeing the ad.

My first thought was "how lame". I still think it's lame and to your point, if you're going to go this route, create something that people either love or hate. The fact that I don't hate it and you don't love it says something.

[davidicus]

.

agreed: clever, amusing, and memorable to some degree. as far as advertising can be good, it's good.

.

[Dustin]

25 year old white male here... I really enjoyed it as it mocked the rap & hip hop culture of today as well as played on the pun of flat buns. Not exactly earth shattering, butt made for an entertaining discussion with friends for a few minutes as we were chillin on the couch watching football yesterday. I bet the ad campaign does well.

[Tyler Hellard]

David,

It does say something - it says it's not a great ad. But it's not a bad ad either, it falls in that rather large upper-middle group of good ads, which I think are perfectly acceptable in this space. Actually, the more I watch it, the more I like it. It really is quite clever. If anything, it's biggest failing is that it's almost too clever (or at least out dated) for who I assume the target is.

"Advertising is dead" might be a bit melodramatic.

[DA]

LOL,

I agree Tyler "Advertising is dead" is actually very melodramatic—but makes for a good blog headline. ;-)

[Tyler Hellard]

Kind of disappointing really. I'd hoped you'd figured out a way to finally kill it. I've been meaning to change careers anyway.

[Jason Peck]

You say, "advertising has been reduced to the equivalent of pulling it's pants down and slapping you in the face with it's private parts." But I think this is just a reflection of what our culture (or at least Hardees target in this commercial) wants these days. We have very very short attention spans and usually only the really silly, outrageous over-the-top/in-your-face things get our attention. If you observe the success of just about any of the viral videos you will see they usually have these ingredients.

I wouldn't say the ad is great, but like others have said, I think it's catchy and does what it is supposed to do--grab people's attention

[David Chartier]

Yea there's some clever stuff going on in here, but I think there's a growing demographic of those who are simply getting tired of seeing sex used as a marketing tool. It is getting *so over done.* It's become the bar for telling when someone just ran out of creativity (and, often, didn't have much to begin with) and took the easy way out: "Hmm... I dunno, let's just get a hot babe."

[Maximus]

I would like to see a continuation of the topic