Wednesday, September 9, 2009

So Long Bikini Season

Public schools start in Los Angeles today. Even though I don't have kids of my own, the new school year signals the "official" end of summer in my world.

Once school's back in session, traffic will be heavier, beaches less crowded, restaurants quieter at lunchtime, reruns on tv will cease and new tv programming will start, office supply stores will once again cater to mostly adults, not mobs of kids with "school supplies" lists, and I'm praying this commercial will finally stop airing on television. Afterall, bikini season is "officially" over, isn't it?

Believe me, I've eaten my share of burgers over the years. But even if I could wear that smoking hot gold lamé bikini like Miss Audrina Patridge, I'm pretty sure I would not be eating a burger, on a beach, with a camera shooting up my butt or zeroed in on my hooters. Or do I have this all wrong?

Who is this commercial targeting-- Burger eating women or bikini watching men?

If the commercial is targeted to guys, are they buying teriyaki burgers because of the hot babe in the commercial? I'd really like to know-- Because the ad copy is about having a bikini body so technically it's targeted to women. Or do real men eat pineapple burgers and wish they could wear gold lamé? I'm confused.

Do you remember Jarret from Subway? He was the big guy that ate nothing but Subway sandwiches and lost a ton of weight and gained a high paying spokesperson's job for the company. I would eat only teriyaki burgers with pineapple-- as disgusting as that sounds, to get the same bikini body as in the video plus a spokesperson's gig!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm dreaming.... And I'm not that stupid.

As you might imagine, I am not a gold lamé bikini-wearing woman therefore I'm sure I sound bitter and jealous. But honestly, I wouldn't touch that burger for all the rice in China. I mean, even if I gave up "like everything" and all I ate were teriyaki burgers everyday, all summer long, I flat out guarantee you I'd ended up as big as the back side of a barn, not bikini ready, for anything.

So I ask you, what is up with this commercial? Who are they selling burgers too? Are people buying them? And is the ad's tag line really "More Than Just A Piece of Meat"? Seriously?

Ahh, happy end of summer.

Welcome to The Fifty Factor - Joanna

52 comments:

  1. Most advertising seems to cater to men's sexual appetites and women's self-loathing.

    Does that sound bitter? It probably is.

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  2. Oh, honey, bikini season was over years ago.....
    :)))))

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  3. I slid right by that, I find commercials like this annoying. get rid of the bikini clad woman, the gold lame and the hooters. whatever has happened to real people...take care my friend.

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  4. Who even eats burgers at the beach with the sand and seagulls drive bombing after the food and possibly pooping from the air on my fancy gold bikini!! Besides I prefer sequins over gold!

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  5. ahhh these are all good questions... which i can´t help you with.... but i am craving a burger... p.s. i go with black bikinis... black is slimming.... happy day! p.s. thank you for making me laugh! i needed that!

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  6. I like what fitcetera had to say very, very, very much! Couldn't have said it better myself. Do you give awards for people who can net it out like that? She deserves a crown!

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  7. I gave up on making sense of commercials a few years ago. I believe fitcetera is right!

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  8. The way commercials work has totally changed in recent times. This new trend of adding the hot Y-factor in every other commercials started off as an experimental thing and I bet it did make sense for some of the brands. But now, people, as always, have started over doing the good thing. They want to give the omph-factor to every other factor, even if it a brand that sells protein rich food for your pet. I can say this 'coz I work for an ad agency as a copy writer.

    With this particular ad, if you look at it, the stress is not on the product but the brand recollection in your mind. This is supposed to appeal to both men and women. When they think of buying a burger they'd ask, "Hi! Which is that burger with Hot Audrina in it?" and not "The burger that wouldn't make you fat".

    Hope I made sense.

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  9. I change the channel when these kinds of commercials come on. I find them demeaning and inappropriate, especially if my teenage son is in the room!

    Give me a break - no one I know wears a bikini, or eats burgers on the beach.

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  10. Yep, men, bikinis and burgers...it goes hand in hand.

    BTW, I read your post on the Obit and I tried to log in to leave a comment (tried twice) but I couldn't. But I DO want to let you know that, as usual, your posts 'take me there'. Beautifully written and brings back memories of MY Grandma. LOTS of your writing brings back memoris of one kind or another.

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  11. It's all about the eye-candy and never the product.

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  12. The whole ad is a fantasy, for men.

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  13. You could spend a lifetime trying to figure out commercials. Most of the time, I just scratch my head and move on. I'll bet a girl with a body like that eats nothing but salads with no dressing!

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  14. does this mean i need to put my gold lame' away too? err...lol. they got you to talk about it though. sometimes i wonder if its really about the buzz and how far they are willing to go to get it, just imagining the grit in the burger...yuck.

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  15. Oh, that begs to be satirized. I'm picturing the sort of woman who actually might know what a burger tastes like rolling around on the beach in her gold bikini while her kids throw sand and ask for bites...

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  16. These types of commercials are made BY men FOR men. Would a woman really buy a burger because a professional model or actress lays around on the beach in a bikini eating a burger?

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  17. You should see the commercials we have in this part of the world....!!
    This seems so innocent in comparison. :)
    But I totally agree with you. It´s always about the men...

    And I never entered bikini season in this lifetime!

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  18. Just the fact that she is in the commercial was enough to me to not watch it. lol Wait, do y'all even have Hardee's in CA?

    It's definitely all for the men. Skinny scantily clad woman shoving something huge in her mouth. Made for men. Period.

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  19. I find it completely caters to men like the Sport Illustrated Swimsuit issue.

    Hard to live up to that unrealistic expectation.

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  20. Carl's Jr is on the list of joints we don't patronize. On the whole, I find their commercials disgusting. Especially the loud mouth-chewy ones.

    Another one is Quizno's. They lost us when they did that commercial of the guy suckling on a wolf tit. Like that would make me want to run out and buy a sandwich! Heh.

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  21. It mostly aims at men and desperately hopes that the woman in the man's life will think enough of "you-go-girl" to come with him. It's not the first "hot" woman defying the expected in a Carl's Jr. Commercial. The "hot" girl trucker comes to mind and she beautifully slops through a pile of nachos while sitting in her rig, surrounded by trucks and grease and asphalt.

    Bottom line, men are easy. Show us some skin and top sirloin ground up and slopping all over said skin and we're yours for life. Pavlov had no idea. If that woman can also have an attitude that will attract their much-missed female demo, it's a win-win for CJ.

    Cheers,

    SLC

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  22. I just can't wrap this old agin' gray matter around how sex sells burgers. Does it really make me want to run to the nearest drive-through( which happens to be miles away from the Ponderosa) to commit gluttony? Now, I must admit I sport a two piece suit on this farm chorin' buff body,(do I hear ya'll laughing out there)of mine but I could never stuff into it if I stuffed one of those sex burgers in my mouth. Ya'll enjoy the day!!!

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  23. Someone else left a comment here about the fact that American advertising "appeals to men's sexual appetites and women's self loathing." I hadn't heard it put that way before, but I think that's spot on!

    Interestingly to me, as I journey deeper into my fifties, I find that I am less influenced by (or even bothered by) advertising. For instance, I bought a couple of those chunky fall fashion magazines recently -- I used to LOVE those in my early twenties and thirties. Yet I realize as I flipped through them last week that my eyes were glazing over.

    It finally hit me that magazines, generally, simply don't appeal to me or my needs anymore, and, well, maybe that's OK. I've settled happily into my own individual style. I haven't given up or frumped out, mind you... I like getting creative with my clothes and my lifestyle. But I finally arrived at a peaceful place where I don't need fashion editors or cosmetic companies to dictate how I "should" look.

    But you're talking about TV ads -- and there's really no escape from those. I guess that's why I'm so glad my husband found Tivo, so we can skip past the commercials most of the time :-)

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  24. I don't know what this says about me, but all I could think about while watching that commercial was "that burger is as big as her head!".

    I'm sure men enjoy watching it, but I'm not sure it really sells any burgers for Carl's Jr. I know I'll never look like that in a bikini, no matter what I eat!

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  25. That kind of advertising pretty much guarantees I'll never buy what they're selling out of sheer disgust.

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  26. My sweet friend- bikini season was a long time over for me before the burger commercial. I'm not an expert, but I never got the commercial in my mind I thought they were hurting their sales in burgers because of the girl in the bikini. What do I know. Have a golden day! xoxo

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  27. You just burst my bubble. I was thinking one burger and I would look like her, not worry about WW or exercising.

    Sniff, sniff....

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  28. Women are too intelligent to fall for that crap, so it must be the guys they're after!

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  29. The commercial is a fantasy for men, and a dream for women. That burger looks disgusting.

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  30. I think this commercial is targeting the highly influential "moron" demographic!

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  31. geesh, that was a bit of a disgusting commercial, in my not so humble opinion. I'm sure they are aiming at those young teenage boys with maybe some disposable cash and mom/dad's car for the evening. its soft porn in a TV commercial; disgusting! I hadn't seen this on TV; is it actually airing?? I hated that last bit too about the piece of meat thing; talk about a not so subliminal message

    and to think I like that particular burger......I guess not any more.......

    I did hear school was starting in LA today on the news this morning; yep, summer is officially over :)

    betty

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  32. I've also wondered about the Hardee's Burger chick with sauce running down her arm that she "had" to lick off... yep. And the awful Burger King Sponge Bob Square Butt to the "I Love Big Butts" song.. this was for a kids Happy Meal. Really? They expect us to believe that. I think both are off the air now. I hope the gold bikini goes next.

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  33. I think my pinkie finger might look OK in a bikini.

    And honestly, that is one of the stupidest commercials I have seen.

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  34. as some of the above comments point out - fantasy for men, and a dream for women - eye candy.
    Wasn't this the company that used Paris Hilton some years ago?

    I don't care for the bad image thing for girls promoted by this.

    Well this just talking about it unfortunately helps promote it.

    I thought you might post something about that firetruck getting sucked into the earth.

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  35. Joanne posting as her alter-ego Joe

    WHAT BURGER???

    Back to Joanne now -- you nailed it dear Joanna - crappy stupid target with zero intention. You had me thinking about my last bikini - it was pink gingham and that was BB - before baby -- baby just turned 29.

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  36. As I recall, one of the first comments back and forth between us was about another commercial that truly cheesed you off. You didn't find it at all amusing, and well, I sorta did.

    So, along comes your pondering this one, and I have to say, I've eaten a pineapple and Teri burger and all I can say is, "Meeh...not so much."

    By the way, on this one...I have to agree with you. And, not because we've discovered we're snarky sisters separated at birth, either. This one is just flippin' rude and stoopud.

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  37. what a gorgeous girl with a perfect body! usually this might be a beer commercial... burgers? entertaining nonetheless! thanks.

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  38. For what it's worth, reading your post made me crave a burger way more than the commercial did. If I did have one it wouldn't be from that place and I wouldn't be eating it in a bikini on the beach.

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  39. I'm thinking that more men will buy the burger because of that commercial unless all the blood that should have been in their brain was somewhere else.

    Don't hate the teriyaki burger. I haven't had one in years but if you ever see one on a menu in a restaurant, get it....sounds gross but tastes delicious!!

    Hugs!!

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  40. LMAO and it is for the pointing head of men that it is geared for

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  41. They are using the same sales philosophy that has sold millions of gadgets, widgets, blodgets, gizmos and you name it.......Image Association.

    It works for both genders.

    When men see Burger King, they associate it with the body and they buy the sandwich.

    When women see Burger King, they associate it with the body they would like to have, and believe it or not....buy the sandwich.

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  42. I just read your post at More.com, and loved it. There wasn't any I loved it button, so I clicked on the I liked it button :)
    This commercial on the other hand is ridiculously confusing.

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  43. Are you kidding me? You don't eat burgers in a bikini at the beach. I'm so disappointed.

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  44. That commercial annoys me, for the same reasons. I find it extremely condescending toward women with weight issues.

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  45. Hmm... I am reading your post and all I can say is that you got a very interesting blog in here. :)

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  46. Hunger for what? It's all linked.

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  47. Wow, your train of thought really went out for a little hike, didn't it? You crack me up!
    Have a nice week-end Joanna. xo

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  48. No one can look like the gold lame' burger eating girl - she has undoubtedly been air brushed so don't sweat it. A friend had a napkin that said 'If you can't lose it, decorate it" - I love that

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  49. This ad can only appeal to men! Every woman knows that she won't look like that if she eats those burgers.

    Actually, apart from being vegetarian, I am grossed out by the ad because while it says that the burger 'is not just a piece of meat', it is obviously a double entendre (with cheese and pickles on) and actually making a reference to the model.. who in this ad, really is portrayed as a piece of meat.

    Ugh - I hate advertisers!

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  50. It's crap like this that make me glad I don't see many commercials anymore. We only randomly see some on Hulu if we watch it but we hardly even use that much anymore.

    Do you remember that other commercial similar to this with the car washing bikini babe eating a hamburger. I wanna say Burger King but it was probably a Carls Jr one too. I'm not a fan.

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  51. Most women I've ever known complain how their belly expands when they even *think* of food so yeah you're right, this is nonsense. However we are talking about it - mission accomplished I suppose. ...On the other hand, based on what I've read above it has had exactly the opposite effect from the one intended. Oops! Back to the drawing board. :)

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