Are you an obnoxious jerk?
Are you too lazy or stupid to cook a halfway decent meal yourself?
Do you eat like a pig at a trough?
Well then you'll love the new [insert unappetizing sandwich name here] from Carl's Jr.
And thus, it is with not the least bit of reluctance — rather, call it relish — that I hereby declare the horrible and all-too-long-running ''Burgers for Jerks'' campaign (my name, not theirs) from Carl's Jr. the Worst Ad Campaign Ever. Bar none. Hands down. (In case you can't tell, I detest these ads.)
But let's be clear here: this dunce-cap coronation has nothing to do with the effectiveness of the ads in strictly financial terms. In fact, given that their insufferable tone hasn't really changed since the dawn of the millennium, I'd assume that Carl's Jr. is pretty happy with what they've done for them as far as sandwich sales go.
No, my contempt for these ads has nothing to do with their dollars-and-cents effectiveness as advertisements per se, and everything to do with the pure, simple, and visceral loathing they induce when I see and hear them (thankfully, I cannot smell or taste them). I hate their attitude, and if they are somewhat successful at provoking some Pavlovian slobbering or grunts of humor from their target audience, then I guess that means I hate their target audience as well.
Ah, but perhaps you'll think I must be overreacting. Well, maybe. But each question in the mock script above is actually based on one or more actual Carl's Jr. commercials.
There's the one, for example, where a guy sits placidly eating a burger while some woman (his girlfriend, perhaps) bangs on the apartment door from outside, repeatedly calling his name in a vain attempt to determine if he's home. The tagline: ''Don't bother me, I'm eating.'' Small wonder, then, that in the futuristic satire Idiocracy, the chain's slogan has been changed (only slightly) to ''F*** you, I'm eating.'' In other words, if you're an obnoxious jerk, Carl's Jr. is the place for you.
Then there's the one where a guy with a village-idiot look on his face feebly attempts to make guacamole by putting an avocado — pit and skin included — into a blender. Lazy morons, Carl's Jr. has got you covered.
And lastly, here's a nauseating spot featuring a guy with some hideous-looking crud smeared all over his face.
Seriously, who are these ads supposed to appeal to if not dim-witted pricks with bad table manners? I mean, if you hate the characters these actors are portraying like I do, you certainly won't be inspired to emulate them by buying the burgers. Accordingly, the ads' producers must be relying on viewers to actually identify with these cretins in some way. And who could identify with such twits?
Well, let's talk demographics. Obviously, these ads are aimed at young men — you know, that vast swath of society whose members are all rude and ill-mannered and subsist on processed hunks of fried meat. Call it the Cro-Magnon demographic. That this crowd is being targeted is obvious enough from the actors in the commercials listed above — i.e., young dudes (with the occasional female foil). And if that doesn't convince you, consider the semi-infamous spot featuring one Paris Hilton eating a burger while she washes a car for some reason. (Obviously, the group being targeted here isn't spoiled hotel heiresses.)
Yes, the tagline for all these ads might as well be ''Carl's Jr. — it's a guy thing.'' (And in fact, for the avocado/blender one, it was ''Without us, some guys would starve.'')
But hold on a minute: I myself am ''a white male, aged 18 to 49,'' and in fact, unlike Homer Simpson, I'm not even 30 (yet). In other words, I've been in the sweet spot for these ads, demographically speaking, since I first started seeing them.
So what's the problem here? Why don't I like these commercials? Why don't I identify with their ''regular guy'' protagonists? Am I not manly enough somehow? After all, I like a good MMA fight. I've been known to belch from excessive beer consumption. And while I don't care much for Miss Hilton, I'd firmly state that her televised car-washing exploits are almost certainly the greatest contribution to society that she will ever make.
In short, I'm a pretty typical guy in most respects, so if Carl's Jr. is a guy thing, why don't I like these commercials?
In the end, I think it's the stupidity that puts me off, the transparent appeal to the Mariana lowest of lowest common denominators (though, of course, to the targeted troglodytes the appeal is presumably not so insultingly see-through). I mean, sure, we guys can be insensitive, self-absorbed slobs, but are we really so dumb that we want some corporate burger pushers telling us how stupid, cloddish, and shiftless we are? And then we're supposed to thank them for it by buying their artery-clogging ''food''? Seriously, it's almost as if they're saying, ''We're gonna tell you what a bunch of jackasses you are, and you're gonna sit there and like it. Now give us your money, morons!''
Add to this the asininity of positioning burger consumption as some sort of tough-guy rebelliousness, some act of defiance against political correctness, and it's all just too much to take. News flash: you are not a rebel if you gorge yourself on the processed crap that corporate ad meisters are telling you to buy. On the contrary, you are a pawn, a puppet, a brainless cipher with a hand up its tuchis, if you can be spun by such unsubtle spin.
And that, when it comes down to it, is the real message behind these horrible, horrible ads, and why I, for one, will never stoop to purchasing a ''Garlic Onion Lard Burger'' or a ''Spicy Jalapeno Extreme!!!'' or whatever god-awful slop it is that Carl's Jr. is selling.
''Would you like insults with that?'' No thanks, I'll just take my business elsewhere.
