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- Jesse
- May 1, 2013
- 3 min read
In this modern era of eating, Carl's Jr. is one of many popular fast food chains that sells fast food here in the United States. Fellow restaurants in this industry are McDonalds, Jack-in-the-Box, and Burger King. All of these fast food companies use visual advertisements to get people to buy their products. Sex appeal is a major marketing tactic in advertisements today and can be seen greatly in the fast food industry. Carl's Jr. is a big company that uses this tactic to gain the attention of their male audiences by comparing eating their burgers to devouring Paris Hilton, objectifying women in all of their commercials, and encouraging an extremely materialistic mindset.
While you watch Paris Hilton eat this burger in the commercial, it causes that immediate thought of "I need to buy this burger." By getting people to visualize themselves biting into the burger reminds the viewers about Paris Hilton and how she was eating the burger in the commercial. By watching her eat the burger erotically in the only scene she eats it, it gives off a sexual vibe to the audience and gives the idea to men that they wish to "devour" her. The idea of "devouring" her is a key point to selling their product because it allows Carl's Jr. to appeal to their male audience. It's effectiveness at the time was very powerful since most men in 2005 knew about Paris Hilton's leaked video back in 2003. With that in mind, Carl's Jr. uses the male demographics' mental visualization to get men to see themselves "eating" Paris Hilton as if they were to eat their burgers.
Following this idea to "devour" Paris Hilton, Paris does nothing else in the commercial aside from soaking herself in soapy water and eat the burger in a sexual manner. By simply seducing the audience in such a way, they objectify Paris by making the audience see her not as Paris Hilton, but as something less. Throughout the whole commercial, Carl’s Jr. makes the audience believe that she is just another piece of meat that they can devour. By degrading her in such a way, the initial idea of getting men to visualize “devouring” her becomes much simpler because now the burger and Paris are more similar. At the time, this tactic was very effective because of Paris's leaked sex tape in 2003.
But Paris Hilton is not the only noticeable feature in the commercial. Alongside Paris is a black Rolls Royce, which she is seen "washing" throughout the commercial. Normally the two have nothing in common with each other, one being a person and the other a vehicle, but to men they are the epitome of a successful lifestyle. The second half of the commercial, involving more of the Rolls Royce and the burger, gives the audience the sense that buying their burger will help them achieve a similar lifestyle with luxurious products and fancy cars, encouraging men to have a materialistic mindset. During a time where beautiful women and fast cars were icons of wealth, this type of advertisement which showed both was extremely effective.
It has been 10 years since that commercial has aired on television. But as times progressed, Carl's Jr. has never deviated from their selling tactic and continues to use the idea of sexual attraction to sell their products. By taking attractive women, as they did with Paris Hilton, to seduce their male demographic and wanting men to have her/eat her along with the product and objectifying women in their commercials while being encouraged by a materialistic lifestyle, Carl's Jr. continues to succeed in their advertising campaign and will continue to since in America, sex and sex appeal is a large part to male life and because of it get men to do things without actual thought.
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