tv ad for a $6 piece of meat
a $6 piece of meat
In a recent Etopia Media Entertainment News Network article entitled "With only 9 days to go until the second debut of the Paris Hilton Hardee's® Spicy BBQ Thickburger™ Topped with Texas Toothpicks™ television ad, Brad Haley, Executive Vice President at Carl's Jr., talks about the impending launch," the EVP of CKE, Inc., the company that owns both Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, said "in total we spent $4 to 5 million on media" promoting its Carl's Jr. Spicy BBQ Six Dollar Burger, using alluring and provocative images of celebrity heiress Paris Hilton washing a Bentley, sudsing herself up, wielding a powerful, gushing hose, and enjoying a CKE/Carl's Jr./Hardee's hamburger.
The implied message, of course, is that if the CKE/Carl's Jr./Hardee's hamburger is the choice of Paris Hilton, who can have whatever she wants, then it should be your choice, too, because, as she famously says, "That's hot."
But what if this whole operation were a charade, if it were merely an effort to associate celebrity Paris Hilton with a food product that IS NOT her true choice, including a non- CKE/Carl's Jr./Hardee's hamburger, in order to dupe the public into thinking this is the burger she prefers, all this being done with the intention of getting more people to buy more CKE/Carl's Jr./Hardee's hamburgers?
A December 1, 2003, article on the USA TODAY web site, tracked down by an intrepid Etopia Media Entertainment News Network investigative reporter (with help from Google), reveals the stunning truth: Paris prefers to eat at McDonalds and Taco Bell.
The sordid truth about Paris Hilton's taste in burgers
This article, entitled
"Checking in with Paris Hilton," by Donna Freydkin, appeared during the time when Ms. Hilton was promoting "her Fox reality series
The Simple Life, premiering tonight (8:30 p.m. ET/PT). The show, shot in five weeks in rural Arkansas, has her and pal Nicole Richie roughing it on a farm to prove that they're not idle, spoiled rich girls who don't know what Wal-Marts or water wells are."
Ms. Freydkin quotes the celebrity thusly, as the heiress to the Hilton Hotels empire attempts to show that she's not a rich, spoiled person:
"'I was playing a character,' drawls Hilton, 22. 'I'm totally normal. I think it's obnoxious when people demand limos or bodyguards.
I eat at McDonald's or Taco Bell. My parents always taught us to be humble. We're not spoiled.'"
An implied accusation of manipulation of the viewing and hamburger-eating public
It's altogether possible that Ms. Hilton spontaneously changed her culinary preference from "McDonalds or Taco Bell" to Carl's Jr. or Hardee's. But it's also possible that whatever she's being paid by CKE, Inc., may have figured in this life-changing event: the substitution of one burger chain for another, in her personal preferences hierarchy of things about which she can say, "That's hot."
Millions more people are about to see Paris Hilton endorsing the Hardee's Spicy BBQ Thickburger, which
CKE EVP Brad Haley has confirmed is "exactly the same as" the Carl's Jr. Spicy BBQ Six Dollar Burger. Don't they deserve the truth about whether the celebrity spokesperson for this food product actually eats what she's encouraging them to eat, or if she takes the money she gets from CKE, Inc., and rushes out to McDonald's or Taco Bell to spend it on the food she REALLY craves, with or without changing her Bentley-washing attire?
If you want to read and listen to more about Paris Hilton
You can listen to everything that Brad Haley, EVP of CKE, Inc., had to say about the impending launch of the second wave of Paris Hilton burger commercials designed to entice customers into Hardee's to order one (or more) Hardee's® Spicy BBQ Thickburgers™" by clicking
here.
You can listen to
Mr. Haley's first interview with
Etopia Media Entertainment News Network, conducted on May 25, 2005, during the height of the uproar about this bit of television history, by clicking
here.
For a complete selection of
Etopia Media Entertainment News Network's articles about the Paris Hilton hamburger ad, including one featuring an interview with Melissa Caldwell, Director of Research and Publications at the Parents Television Council, in which she characterizes the running of these ads before 9 p.m.
(a policy explained by Mr. Haley in his second interview and, according to him, something that's no longer happening nor will it be happening with Hardee's ads) as
"a violation of families' trust," just click on the date when the article first appeared, and it will appear again:
May 24th (#1),
May 24th (#2),
May 25th (#1),
May 25th (#2),
May 27th, and
May 28th.
Ms. Caldwell's comments, and audio interview, appeared in the second May 24th article.
Melissa Caldwell, Director of Research and Publications at the Parents Television Council
Texas Toothpicks™
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