May 16, 2008
We live in an era of easily given and easily taken offense. There might have been a time when the core of civility was implied mutual respect, but that’s a concept that now sadly seems as quaint as a tea party. We still talk about the golden rule but our contemporary culture embraces ever-increasing conflict, in which a modest "do unto others" is increasingly replaced by a shrill and strident "me first."
Now this is no sermon, and I have no moral standing to give one, but we have to take this seismic social shift into account when we do our jobs. And if your job happens to be marketing fast food to 18 to 34-year-old men it is likely that you find yourself in an excruciating bind. In the creation of media and messages that resonate with the contemporary mindset of this somewhat immature and testosterone-fueled target market, you run the high likelihood of offending just about everyone who isn’t a 20-year-old man.
Certainly the notion of "crazy young people" has long been with us, but this issue has taken a particularly serious turn as a number of recent quick-service television ads have generated a particularly aggrieved outcry from consumer watchdogs. And while the industry legitimately argues such points as free speech, demographic imperatives, and having a sense of humor, there seems to be much more than a self-promoting crank factor being brought to bear with the recent charges. Surely ads that appear to glorify the likes of inhalant abuse, sexually provocative teachers, and driving while stoned cross some sort of socially appropriate line. So, the moral outrage of those who feel their values have been assaulted is becoming increasingly palpable.
Take for instance the recent Wendy’s ad for a 99-cent Junior Bacon Cheeseburger, in which a group of office colleagues take hits from a helium canister and, gas engorged, float around the ceiling. The ad quickly raised the ire and e-mail activism of the National Inhalant Prevention Coalition, a Texas-based group that pointed out both the direct physical dangers of "huffing" helium related to replacing the body’s oxygen with an inert gas and the perhaps more insidious secondary consequence of putting out a mass media message that using inhalants is kind of funny and socially acceptable.
"It’s fictitious, it’s portrayed as a ludicrous situation," responds Wendy’s spokesperson Bob Bertini with just the slightest hint of exasperation. "People don’t float on the ceilings like balloons. Besides, if you listen to the commercial, the enlightened consumer, the one in the red wig, doesn’t condone the action. He tells everyone that filling up with just anything is wrong and to choose the Junior Bacon Cheeseburger instead."
This might be a bit subtle in a medium where image tends to trump dialogue, but surely Wendy’s is not entirely off base when it historically represents itself as, in Bertini’s words, "responsible marketers, aware that we serve a broad consumer base." In the mix regarding this particular commercial, says Bertini, were such factors as the demonstrable popularity of the red wig campaign, the target demographic, and the fact that it’s simply the nature of all advertising to generate commentary, some of it critical. In the end, Wendy’s let the campaign run for its slotted six weeks, all the while emphasizing that the whole red wig campaign is built on the structure "Don’t do what everyone else is doing, don’t follow the crowd."
Also an inevitable party to this conversation is CKE Restaurants, who first had all heck break loose when Paris Hilton and Hugh Hefner started to salaciously hawk Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. burgers back in 2004. These celebrity commercials aroused an almost tame response, however, compared to the "Flat Buns" campaign released this passed summer in which a class of teenage boys raps while a pretty, young teacher puts some moves on a desk that would cause Eve to blush—and certainly knock any desk apples to the floor. A press release put out by the Tennessee Education Association that characterized the ad as "unbelievably demeaning," got the ball rolling on a national firestorm of criticism.
Hardee’s spokesperson Jeff Mochal makes no apologies for the chain’s trying to be "edgy" with its ads, citing a limited-impressions marketing budget and a need to rapidly generate buzzworthy notice in a demographic that’s "increasingly hard to reach in the 21st Century." The ad was simply trying to be funny and lighthearted, contends Mochal. Nevertheless, the chain decided that there was absolutely no upside in alienating teachers and modified the ad.
The fact that CKE was willing to consider and make the change is perhaps the best that can be said of them and our industry. After all, how can a burger joint satisfy its shareholders and be the conscience of the world? True moral authority surely needs to come from a higher place than a California office building.
And speaking of higher places … did you see the ad where the California kid stops at a late-night Jack In The Box drive-thru? He gets into a discussion with his dashboard Jack statue about ordering tacos and puts in an order, at the statue’s suggestion, for 30 of them. Even those who laughed wondered if an apparently stoned driver was a socially appropriate pitchman.
"A lot of people love our tacos," Jack’s Kathleen Anthony told me when I brought the matter up. "They’re 99-cents for two of them. Why wouldn’t you order 30?"
Works for me.
