“Carl’s Jr.’s advertisements are so over-sexualized that they’re actually absurd and sometimes end up being amusing in a ‘what the hell were they thinking’ sort of way”(Aboulafia). “He is pushing an agenda that fits his own wants” (Beauty Redefined). “Women are more than meat”(Instagram, Twitter). Their misogynistic messages imply that women are nothing more than sexual objects, not to be respected for their various talents (as actresses, models or chefs), but for the visual pleasure they provide males” (Aboulafia). “Cut the Carl’s because I want to be able to sit down with my son and watch a football game without exposing him to sexual activity”(One Million Moms). Men, women, parents, mental health groups, and body image advocates are lashing out at the burger chain, Carl’s Junior, for their offensive, and harmful advertising, focusing on objectifying and highly sexualizing women. The hashtags #cutthecarls and #morethanmeat have been created and are trending in order to send a message to the burger chain. The anti Carl’s Junior campaign states that women are more than meat, and that all bodies are beautiful, not just the highly idealized ones on the advertisements (Kite). However, the fact that the Carl’s Junior advertising campaign is unethical and hurtful is not the interesting aspect of this study. There are many companies out there who have used sex appeals in unethical ways to sell their product. However, when they experienced similar backlash, they apologized and changed the focus of their campaigns recognizing the damage that their ads can cause [Axe, Reebok, Virgin Mobile]. The problem with the Carl’s Junior campaign is that CEO Brad Haley continues to support his marketing methods and states that he does not care if society is hurt or offended because he is still making money.

In a Wall Street Journal Interview Haley responds to the backlash of the campaign, and stands by the advertisements and its sexually charged, and discriminatory appeals. Haley’s response is a thinly based attempt at logos argument. He claims his ads attract their target market of 18-35-year-old men successfully, and that their company flourishes because of the ads. However, Haley fails to address the negative outcome of his argument and advertisements and tries to frame the affects of the ads as purely economic. Due to Haley’s lack of consideration for the affects of the advertisements beyond the economic benefit, his argument is a thinly veiled attempt at logic, becomes fallacious due to post hoc ergo propter hoc when he claims the ends justify the means, and he believes he is catering to doxa, when his understanding of the general public is way off base.

Why are these advertisements so awful? It is possible to use sexual appeals in an ethical way, so the question to be answered is why this advertising campaign is unethical. Haley still does not find issue with this campaign, even amidst the criticism that the company receives due to the complexities of their problematic appeals. Jessica Blair, an advertising analyst from San Houston State University addresses this concept of the ethics behind sexually based appeals. In the research study, Ethics in Advertising: Sex Sells but Should It?, Blair discusses the ethics regarding sexual appeals in advertising. It answers the question on if sex actually sells the way we think it does, how sex is being used, the gender roles in sex advertising and the role that ethics plays in this form of advertising. This article demonstrates two things, one the success rates of sexual appeals and two how they actually work. It also states that there is no clear view on the ethical implications behind sexual advertising appeals. However, this article states that not offending people, and with careful planning, sexual appeals can be used if they find a common ground. The following depicts one of Haley’s tactless ads, and demonstrates that his sexual appeals do not meet any of the ethical criterion presented by scholars: The television program breaks to commercial as cameras focus on a tan, tall woman sitting on the hood of a car holding a large juicy burger. She flips her bright blond hair over her shoulders, exposing her cleavage and shiny, oiled chest. Her legs spread apart as salivates over the dripping burger. Commentators on the scene speak in awe of how mouthwatering, and sizzling the “meat” looks. The woman on the screen licks her fingers and rubs her body as devours the enormous burger. The woman stares seductively into the screen with piercing blue eyes as the screen fades black to a Carl’s Junior logo.

Clearly, Haley is failing miserably at finding common ground. He presents himself as a playboy in the Wall Street Journal interview, and continues to support ads that have been proven to be misguided, and create negative effects among young adults. Clearly, his ads are unethical, if one is judging them by Blair’s standards because he does offend multiple different groups of people including women of a variety of body types, and does not connect or identify with the intended audience in the way that they believe the ads do.

As stated previously, there have been various women’s groups and public conversation that has come back at the burger chain for objectifying women and promoting a highly idealized version of what they believe to be sexy. Carl’s Junior has received backlash for contributing to the low self-esteem of young adults and for promoting sex in a way that creates negative body image. Essentially the purpose of the advertisements is to attract viewers to the burger chain by attracting the viewer to the woman in the ad by turning them on with the sex-based appeals. CEO Brad Haley claims that this is the best way to reach their target market of young, hungry guys. “It is a bro-centric campaign that is influenced by our meat on meat menu,” said Brad Haley (Taylor). This is problematic because not only do the ads never show women with curves, freckles, or a variety of body types and characteristics, they make the statement that only that type of woman is capable of turning someone with the way that the woman acts, and the intention of the advertisement. A body positivity blog comments that objectifying women in this manner is the first step to justifying sexual violence. Men are following suit in the campaign to #cutthecarls because they believe that women deserve to be treated better than a piece of meat. In addition, families via the organization One Million Moms are also speaking out against the burger chain because they are unable to watch an appropriate, family television program, like the Super Bowl without subjecting their kids to sexual behavior. They claim that it should be up to the individual families to expose their children to that type of behavior when they see fit. “Families should be able to watch the game together if they choose. Viewers should not be bombarded with sexually explicit and disgusting ads during every commercial break,” (One Million Moms).

These are just two instances where various organizations are upset at Carl’s Junior for exploiting women. There are also numerous comments on discussion boards, Carl’s Junior’s Facebook page, and on Youtube, where everyday people are finding the damage caused by the advertisements inexcusable. However, this is nothing new. Sexually based appeals and inappropriate and problematic advertising is an unfortunate instance in the marketing industry. Sex sells, and marketers know it. However, the issue in the case against Carl’s Junior is that CEO Brad Haley continues to stand by the ads, and furthers the negative repercussions from the advertising by condoning negative body image, low self-esteem etc. and continuing that conversation simply because he is making money.

It is clear based on Blair’s analysis, and the backlash from society that the Carl’s Junior sexual appeals are completely unethical. However, Haley’s response is what is crucial when analyzing the marketing campaign. In the Wall Street Journal Interview Haley responds to the negative conversation regarding his advertising and his company and stands by the campaign, and its sexually charged, and discriminatory appeals. The ads are pathos-based appeals to the core, and Haley believes that if he is able to appeal to his target market, then all the negative repercussions from the ads ado not matter. He is framing himself as a manly man and causes further societal damage by stating that the aftermath does not matter. His persona that he wishes to portray is essentially a sex and monetarily driven, inconsiderate, selfish man. He does this by not only neglecting to recognize the negative aftermath from his sexually problematic advertising, but also by continuing to make variety of claims that are problematic such as promoting young people to eat at the restaurant because their parents don’t approve, that they want to attract young hungry men, and that women who complain only promote his support for the ads because it draws more attention to the company. Essentially, Haley is making the claim that body shaming, and promoting sexist, and stereotypically sexy advertisements is ok, despite the fact that it causes body dissatisfaction among young women and promotes the objectification of women as sexual entities rather than people.

Haley justifies his problematic advertising by attempting to say that the end justifies the means. In the interview, Haley rationalizes, “We are not afraid to take a chance to build our relationship with our target audience, 18-35-year-old males. If it is something they love, that maybe their moms or dad’s don’t approve of, in a lot of ways that can help us build a stronger bond with our target” (Vranica). This statement from Haley demonstrates how he has a drastically uninformed idea of the general public and those opposed to his ads. In this instance, he believes that “moms and dads” are the only ones not approving of his problematic sex-based appeals. As discussed earlier, parents are not the only people who disapprove. Haley thinks that turning on his target audience and giving them something he thinks they want, when in reality, it might just be something he wants, is worth infuriating a large portion of the general public. His poor attempts at logic in this quote, are not only fallacious because he misunderstands doxa, but also because he is claiming that because of the ads, he grows closer to a particular audience when there is no evidence to support such correlations. He is falling into a post hoc ergo propter hoc argument by believing that his ads are connecting him to a group that does not respond to his ads in the way that he thinks they do.

Haley continues to fall into the post hoc fallacy as he discusses how the sales and success of the company show that the ads are in his opinion, not crossing the line. “Our sales are always the ultimate measure of whether or not we have gone too far. Those kinds of ads have always been the most successful for us,” Haley retorts (Vranica). There are many ways in which a company can earn success. Carl’s Junior’s chargrilled thick patties are a rare commodity in fast food and are accredited for a large portion of the company’s success, not the scantily clad advertisements. In addition, while the advertising may have generated some success as Haley claims, his logic is again flawed, because one cannot ignore all of the affects of the advertisement. An increase in burger sales coincides with negative conversation, an increase in body shaming for young adults, and generating low self-esteem and lack of self-worth among young adults as well. Haley simply ignores the countless accounts of negative repercussions to the ads and dismisses them by saying at least “we are being noticed” (Vranica). His logic is flawed because success needs to be evaluated in both the negative and the positive. Haley is only analyzing the positive for his company.

Scholars have analyzed the affects that this type of sexual advertising has on young women, and Haley is choosing to ignore these side affects with his poor assessments of doxa, and use of logic. Howard Lavine, Donna Sweeney, and Stephen Wagner from Northern Illinois University wrote on this topic as it pertains to a young woman’s exposure to television ads that portray women as sex objects, concededly increased body dissatisfaction for both men and women (Lavine). In the article, Depicting women as sex objects in television advertising: Effects on body dissatisfaction Lavine, Sweeney, and Wagner state that men see women objectified on the screen, but feel self-conscious about themselves, and their own abilities to either obtain a woman of the stature displayed. It is also stated that if young men find a different body type of woman sexy, rather than the typical model type woman on the advertisements, then they will feel poorly about themselves because they think that something is wrong with them because they want something different in a woman (Lavine). This is crucial because Haley made the statement that his campaign promotes young men to come to their restaurant, when in reality, studies show that even sexually charged campaigns aimed at young men, cause them to have body dissatisfaction as well as in women. Lavine, Sweeney, and Wagner’s study proves that Haley and the rest of the marketing team at Carl’s Junior do not have a clear understanding of the market they believe they are connecting with. This lack of understanding makes Haley’s response fallacious because they are claiming that burger sales are in direct correlation with these problematic advertisements.

Since Carl’s Junior’s target audience responds negatively with their emotions and experiences negative affects from the ads, Haley’s response is guilty of post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning. In order to say that the ads directly increase sales, Haley needs to understand how his ads affect his target audience, something he clearly needs to work on.

The saddest part about this whole ordeal is that despite all of the unethical behavior, and negative repercussions, Brad Haley still wins because his company is still wildly successful. His response is impersonal in that he clearly does not understand the market he is trying to appeal to. His response is painful to so many young adults of all genders because his lack of concern for their feelings further contributes to the problems his ads create. Haley’s attitude sends the message that it doesn’t matter if you develop an eating disorder because you want to be considered sexy like the models in his ads. It doesn’t matter if you are a young man doubting yourself, your looks, and your mind because you want someone that looks different than the models or that you feel you are not capable of pleasing a woman like the ones in the ads. Parents have to watch their children suffer and feel poorly about themselves because of the poor self-esteem that the ads generate. Haley does not care because, at the end of the day, he is still making money. The sad part of this story in a post-truth era is that he is still in business.

As a young woman who has experienced some of the negative repercussions that the ads create, I would like to tell Mr. Haley that money isn’t everything. I have looked at his ads and felt jealous of the women on the television screen. I have felt poorly about myself because I cannot eat that burger, and look the way that Brad Haley is telling me I should look. Money is not worth causing young men and women pain or poor self-esteem. As a successful businessman in the food industry, Haley has a unique opportunity to promote healthy life styles, positive living, and body image. However, he chooses to put down and hurt the people that make him successful in the first place. Without the people purchasing his burgers, he would have no money to throw around on these ads. Spending 130 million dollars annually to put down his patrons and make them feel poorly about themselves is despicable (Vranica). Haley should be spending his money advertising how young adults can enjoy food, and spread positivity rather than body shaming. There are so many different ways that Haley could be advertising, and yet he chooses unethical sex appeals that hurt his patrons. As far as I am concerned, Brad Haley is scum and deserves to go out of business. It is a shame I ever enjoyed his chicken stars.

Works Cited

"#cutthecarls • Instagram Photos and Videos." Instagram. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.

"#CuttheCarls." Twitter. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.

Aboulafia, Ariana. "Reaction Time: Carl's Jr. Can Stuff It With Their Own Gnarly Burgers." Neon Tommy. USC Annenburg Media, n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.

Blair, Jessica Dawn, et al. "Ethics in advertising: sex sells, but should it?." Journal of Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues 9.1/2 (2006): 109.

Kite, Lindsay, and Lexie Kite. "Help Us #CuttheCarls Because Women Are #MoreThanMeat - BEAUTY REDEFINED." BEAUTY REDEFINED. N.p., 23 Apr. 2015. Web. 27 Nov. 2016.

Lavine, Howard, Donna Sweeney, and Stephen H. Wagner. "Depicting women as sex objects in television advertising: Effects on body dissatisfaction." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25.8 (1999): 1049-1058.

One Million Moms. "Carl's Jr. Super Bowl Ad." OneMillionMoms.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2016.

Taylor, Kate. "The CEO of Carl's Jr. Doesn't Care If You're Offended by the Chain's Sexy Ads." Entrepreneur. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2016.

Vranica, Suzanne. "For Hardee's and Carl's Jr., Sex Sells." WSJ. Wsj.com, 26 May 2015. Web. 03 Nov. 2016.