Burger chain CEO defends racy adverts
NEW YORK — Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s ads starring nearly naked women have become a part of North American culture, according to Andy Puzder, CEO of the chains’ parent company.
“People watch for the ads, and want to know when the next one’s coming out,” he says.
Some of the women were relatively unknown before they appeared in the ads. Others, such as Heidi Klum and Padma Lakshmi, were already famous. 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.
CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Carl’s and Hardee’s, is privately held and doesn’t disclose financial results. But it says sales were up five per cent at established locations in the second half of its last fiscal year.
The newest ad airs Monday and stars Sports Illustrated model Samantha Hoopes eating “the most American thickburger,” which includes a beef patty between a split hot dog and potato chips.
Here’s what Puzder had to say in an interview: Q: How did these ads start? A: It started with an ad agency we used to have called Mendelsohn Zien and a guy named Jordin Mendelsohn. He came up with the idea to use Paris Hilton in an ad and make it a very cutting-edge ad, where she was washing a Bentley. Actually, he tried to chicken out. He called and said: “I don’t think we should do this ad, I want to talk to you.” But I called him back and I said: “I want to do the Paris Hilton ad.” This was 2005.
(Mendelsohn says he didn’t like the initial ad his team developed, but didn’t object to the final version he worked on.)
Q: How do you get women to do the commercials?
A: 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 just did an ad with [model and actress] Charlotte McKinney, which kind of created Charlotte McKinney. It was her walking through a farmers’ market. You think she’s naked until the end, and you see she’s got clothes on. It’s for the all-natural burger.
Q: Do models now see Carl’s Jr. ads as a platform?
A: We did an ad last summer where [ Sports Illustrated model] Hannah Ferguson was washing a big Ford pickup truck for the Texas barbecue burger. We did an event in Texas and I was talking to her. She said: “All us girls at Sports Illustrated, we all talk about who’s going to do the next Carl’s Jr. ad and how can we be the model that does the next ad?” (A representative for Ferguson says she never made the statement.) And Padma’s manager contacted us. You know who Padma is? Q: Padma Lakshmi? A: Yeah, Padma actually put in one of her cookbooks how when she was modelling as a teenager, her parents moved to Los Angeles. They couldn’t eat meat, right? But she would sneak out to a Carl’s Jr. and get a western bacon cheeseburger, and then lick the barbecue sauce off her fingers when she got home, so her parents couldn’t tell. Padma’s manager called and said: “Did you see this in the book?” So we put her in an ad where she eats a western bacon cheeseburger.
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.
Q: What are some examples without saying names? Are they not the right age?
A: Some of it may be age relevant. Although, Heidi Klum is no spring chicken.
It depends on a lot of interlocking factors, and what products we’re promoting. First of all, you really need to be able to eat the burger like you’re loving it. We don’t want somebody that’s going to go out there and say: “Well, I don’t eat burgers.”
You really have to go at it. You really have to attack it.
Q: Has there been a problem with that?
A: 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.
(A representative for Kardashian disputed the account and said a salad ad was chosen because Kardashian had a fitness DVD and wanted to eat something that fit with her image.)