Brief 3: Advertising Ethics

One of the most important things I learned studying Mass Communications is the hierarchy of needs to which advertising caters. There are 15 of those, but when speaking of advertising ethics, there's really only one that does a ton of feather-ruffling: No. 1is the need for sex. Perhaps one of the best possible advertisements to use as an example are the racy Carl's Jr. (AKA Hardee's) ads.

"BBQ's Best Pair" 

Even I can get a good chuckle from Hardee's ridiculous manipulation of the first need. It's commercials like these where an audience really has to stand back and ask what's really being sold: A heart-stopping cheeseburger or something way more provocative? I was really hoping what the advertisements were going for was exactly this element of comedy, but I may have been wrong.

An article on Fox News station KTVU claimed, "The 64-year-old chief executive says the ads "cut through the clutter" and make an impression on the younger men the burger chains court."

While it cannot be denied this statistic may hold merit, it's surely not true that no one of the opposite gender or of a different age eats at this restaurant. With these particular ads, some of us may not be sure we haven't stumbled upon the triple x channel whilst channel surfing.

"Borderball" 

When I witnessed my first racy Hardee's commercial, it did come on late at night, however, I could have been mistaken as to what the ad was promoting had I not watched til the end, or God forbid, have gotten distracted enough not to see the cheeseburger. There is a difference between selling pornography to an audience and selling something completely unrelated when using the same concept. This is especially true if that something is for all ages. There is no mistaking a late night advertisement for pornographic material, unless there are ginormous cheeseburgers involved.

This is a great ethical concern. There is the ongoing argument against regulation of sex in media, so there is censorship. The problem with censorship is asking what is considered inappropriate to what viewers. Indecent and pornographic are hardly the same thing, but where is the line drawn?


Using an overt sexual theme is not the only advertising method used by this fast food chain. Advertisers use all sorts of methods to appeal to certain audiences. One of those is the use of celebrity endorsements. It seems to work well with all ages, but Hardee's is not only riling feminists everywhere, they're also making celebrities left and right!

"Drive In"

According to CEO Andy Pudzer, "We have a history of picking these young women before they hit their peak. We put Kate Upton in an ad a month before she got the cover for Sports Illustrated. At the time we picked her, we just said, "This is a beautiful woman." . . . We get a lot of actresses, whose names I won't tell you, who contact us, who we don't end up using in the ad because they're not right for the brand."

Another article from Fox News, Hardees Ad Steaming Up TVs and Tempers:

Article

Upton wasn't the only one "right for the brand." Kim Kardashian got her very own customized ad as well, and Pudzer had this to say about her:

"We used Kim Kardashian in an ad. But Kim really couldn't eat the burgers. Luckily, we had a salad we were promoting, so we used Kim in the salad ad. But if we had not been promoting a salad, we probably never would've done an ad with Kim, because she wasn't good at eating the burger. She's too tiny. She's really little."

"Getting Clean"

Yes, she sounds perfect for the brand. None of the other women in the previous ads were "tiny" or "little", it wasn't ridculous at all to see them holding and opening wide for a behemoth cheeseburger, but I digress.

Perhaps, the issue should not be summarized by how little these women are wearing, but by what they're selling while not wearing it. I personally find it as comical as it is ludacrious, but I can see the deception of the ads. I'm not so sure what it is. I do know this, however: Eating fast food is more likely to land those "younger men" with congestive heart failure than Kate Upton. Also, women of such stature probably don't pound down burgers bigger than their heads. Not to say they couldn't or even wouldn't.