Weird and possibly sexy fast food commercials

[Max Rockatansky]

Borrowing from the "Take your health seriously"  thread I present:

Count me in the camp of not really being enticed by food ads.  I can't think of a specific instance where I saw a TV advertisement for food and decided to buy something because of it.  I always feel like I try things because I randomly decide I want to go to a restaurant or someone recommends something.

Psst...the fact that you are unaware is how they work...

Right, which I would refer to my comments above.  If I can't recall the food being advertised on a conscious level are the commercials actually effective?  An example I used was that I can remember the Burger King possibly having an intimate night out but I can't recall what food he had in bed.

As an aside, I haven't thought to grab food from Burger King post coitus either which makes me what they hell they were trying to advertise.   

I know there are many others out there.  The Paris Hilton burger ad from Carl's Junior comes to mind as also being pretty weird. 

[ClassicHasClass]

Carl's Jr had a lot of sex == food ads for awhile, like sexy models eating drippy burgers. There was some strange subtext going on there. 

[tolbs17]

At the end it shows a person eating a burrito which is not normally done in any commercials, really.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z63_EPObpfM&ab_channel=BobbyThomasPearson-Canada%2FWorldwide

[snowc]

Hardees. One word. 

[zachary_amaryllis]

McDonald's have a failed ad campaign where a guy was saying I'd hit that?

[ilpt4u]

Hardees. One word. 

Hardee's and Carl's Jr. are corporate siblings. Pretty sure they have the same marketing department

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Hardee's and Carl's Jr. are still jointly owned but their parent has decided again to divorce them from each other, so to speak. There got to be tension in the corporate office over the racy advertising likely not fitting Hardee's more flyover country (read:conservative) demographic values, and their marketing studies showed the people who ate Hardee's and those who ate Carl's had strikingly different habits (Hardee's makes a lot more of its total sales at breakfast than Carl's, for one). So they decided to move Hardee's back into a traditional food porn advertising focus and keep Carl's for the sexier and more experimental ads.

I had Carl's for the first time in June 2020 in Washington State and I noticed their focus was more on California-style burgers than Hardee's has. Midwesterners stereotypically are meat and potatoes people. We're generally not into that sort of stuff here.

[Takumi]

I remember an early 2000s McDonalds commercial that had a young woman eating a Big Mac, and enjoying it just a little too much. I’ve never been able to find it on YouTube, though. Maybe I dreamed it.

[oscar]

Hardee's and Carl's Jr. are still jointly owned but their parent has decided again to divorce them from each other, so to speak. There got to be tension in the corporate office over the racy advertising likely not fitting Hardee's more flyover country (read:conservative) demographic values, and their marketing studies showed the people who ate Hardee's and those who ate Carl's had strikingly different habits (Hardee's makes a lot more of its total sales at breakfast than Carl's, for one). So they decided to move Hardee's back into a traditional food porn advertising focus and keep Carl's for the sexier and more experimental ads.

I thought Carl's Jr. ditched the racier ads, too. Its territory included many stores in Utah, and I suspect those ads didn't go over well there either. Its territory has also been gradually expanding eastward, to add "flyover country" markets not served by Hardee's.

I can't speak for other reasons for the split, such as regional menu preference differences. I almost never went to Carl's Jr. and Hardee's (plenty of both) except for breakfast.

[plain]

Burger King: Wake up with the King 

[skluth]

It's not sexy. But the Taco Bell commercial with the two really geeky teens wearing ram horns seeing each other on a transit platform. Then her shield hits something, the bell rings, and next thing you know the girl is at Taco Bell. Weirdest boy-meets-girl commercial I've ever seen.

[HighwayStar]

Most of them these days are just stupid. But on the weird list (though none of them are sexy)

Burger King commercials with the "king" from the 00's, those were just bizarre.

McDonalds Pizza and the McDLT with Jason Alexander commercial are both kind of odd in the setup.

Someone had a commercial, possibly Chi-Chi's, that had something to the effect of "when you are feeling a little Mexican" as a line, which I am sure would trigger people if they used it today.

[snowc]

Hardee's and Carl's Jr. are still jointly owned but their parent has decided again to divorce them from each other, so to speak. There got to be tension in the corporate office over the racy advertising likely not fitting Hardee's more flyover country (read:conservative) demographic values, and their marketing studies showed the people who ate Hardee's and those who ate Carl's had strikingly different habits (Hardee's makes a lot more of its total sales at breakfast than Carl's, for one). So they decided to move Hardee's back into a traditional food porn advertising focus and keep Carl's for the sexier and more experimental ads.

I had Carl's for the first time in June 2020 in Washington State and I noticed their focus was more on California-style burgers than Hardee's has. Midwesterners stereotypically are meat and potatoes people. We're generally not into that sort of stuff here.

we have hardees in nc, where it started out.

[NE2]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiKPJdgqLVo

[kphoger]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiKPJdgqLVo

I thought for sure that this was a parody, not a real TV commercial.  Nope, I was wrong!

Isn't it just wondrous that, when BK got flak for promoting kids' meals with such a risqué commercial, the company expected people to believe it was actually targeting adult consumers?

[abefroman329]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiKPJdgqLVo

I thought for sure that this was a parody, not a real TV commercial.  Nope, I was wrong!

Isn't it just wondrous that, when BK got flak for promoting kids' meals with such a risqué commercial, the company expected people to believe it was actually targeting adult consumers?

As an adult consumer who regularly consumes kids' meals, it's within the realm of possibility.

[kphoger]

Isn't it just wondrous that, when BK got flak for promoting kids' meals with such a risqué commercial, the company expected people to believe it was actually targeting adult consumers?

As an adult consumer who regularly consumes kids' meals, it's within the realm of possibility.

Now I'm curious to know if kids' meals are a loss leader or not.  If they are, then I shouldn't think a restaurant would want to target adults in a kids' meal ad.

[Max Rockatansky]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiKPJdgqLVo

I thought for sure that this was a parody, not a real TV commercial.  Nope, I was wrong!

Isn't it just wondrous that, when BK got flak for promoting kids' meals with such a risqué commercial, the company expected people to believe it was actually targeting adult consumers?

Amusingly this isn't dissimilar to what I would expect the Kurger Bing Facebook parody page to post. 

[Scott5114]

Isn't it just wondrous that, when BK got flak for promoting kids' meals with such a risqué commercial, the company expected people to believe it was actually targeting adult consumers?

As an adult consumer who regularly consumes kids' meals, it's within the realm of possibility.

Now I'm curious to know if kids' meals are a loss leader or not.  If they are, then I shouldn't think a restaurant would want to target adults in a kids' meal ad.

I don't really think they are. When I was at Burger King (which was almost 15 years ago, wow!), the kid's meal consisted of a $1 cheeseburger, $1 fry, $1 drink, and a toy. I don't remember the price of the kid's meal, but I want to say it was in the the $3—4 range. Given that a $1 drink cost around a quarter to produce (and 20¢ of that was the cup), I would imagine that there was more than enough profit margin.

[abefroman329]

Isn't it just wondrous that, when BK got flak for promoting kids' meals with such a risqué commercial, the company expected people to believe it was actually targeting adult consumers?

As an adult consumer who regularly consumes kids' meals, it's within the realm of possibility.

Now I'm curious to know if kids' meals are a loss leader or not.  If they are, then I shouldn't think a restaurant would want to target adults in a kids' meal ad.

I don't really think they are. When I was at Burger King (which was almost 15 years ago, wow!), the kid's meal consisted of a $1 cheeseburger, $1 fry, $1 drink, and a toy. I don't remember the price of the kid's meal, but I want to say it was in the the $3—4 range. Given that a $1 drink cost around a quarter to produce (and 20¢ of that was the cup), I would imagine that there was more than enough profit margin.

Currently it's $4.59 for a cheeseburger kids meal, whereas ordering the same meal off the regular menu will cost $3.88 ($1.59 for the cheeseburger, $1.29 for the fries, and $1 for the drink).  No toy, though.

[HighwayStar]

Isn't it just wondrous that, when BK got flak for promoting kids' meals with such a risqué commercial, the company expected people to believe it was actually targeting adult consumers?

As an adult consumer who regularly consumes kids' meals, it's within the realm of possibility.

Now I'm curious to know if kids' meals are a loss leader or not.  If they are, then I shouldn't think a restaurant would want to target adults in a kids' meal ad.

I doubt it. Almost any menu item is going to have some profit margin, because of the structure of fast food.

Its not like a grocery store where someone comes in for the loss leader Poweraid and goes out with a cart of stuff worth 10x the Poweraid. If you loss lead a sandwhich you have to make all your profit on fries and a drink? Nope.

If you loss lead on a kids meal (or two or 3), you make all the profit on the two (or equally likely one) parents buying adult meals? Nope, does not work.

[Big John]

1980s, Herb, a stereotypical nerd who hadn't eaten a Whopper.

[formulanone]

Isn't it just wondrous that, when BK got flak for promoting kids' meals with such a risqué commercial, the company expected people to believe it was actually targeting adult consumers?

As an adult consumer who regularly consumes kids' meals, it's within the realm of possibility.

Now I'm curious to know if kids' meals are a loss leader or not.  If they are, then I shouldn't think a restaurant would want to target adults in a kids' meal ad.

For the 99% of the kids who can't drive to Burger King (or whose parents won't left them walk 5 miles to the nearest one), yeah...those parents are making the final spending decision.

Yikes on that ad. Though the average 2-10 year old seeing the ad probably just thinks it's silly, not sexy.

[kphoger]

Hey, I just want to point out that what |NE2| posted was actually a condensed version of the commercial.  The full version is worse/better.

[Max Rockatansky]

Hey, I just want to point out that what |NE2| posted was actually a condensed version of the commercial.  The full version is worse/better.

I've never seen that version, that's epic they made a whole music video.

The best comment on the video:

"I switched to porn so it would be easier to explain to my parents."