You've got to hand it to Carl's Jr./Hardee's — they just won't give up using sex to sell their burgers, no matter what gets in their way.
In New Zealand, according to the National Business Review, the barrier was a broadcast TV ban on their "BBQ's Best Pair" ad by the Commercial Approvals Bureau for using "sexual appeal in an exploitative and degrading manner" and "using sex to sell an unrelated product". (Makes one wonder how many consumer ads from the Americas, Australia, or Asia get approved there.)
Rather than give up the brand's international creative, national owner Restaurant Brands just hired an American actor to supply a play-by-play description of the banned video. It ends up being, thanks to the imagination, even dirtier:
Sticking it to advertising regulators probably scored the brand lots of points with their target market, who they describe as "young hungry guys.”
The radio version was done by NZ's Special Group. Creative Director Tony Bradbourne boasts, “it’s just great humour which is on tone and on brand for our audience.”
I guess we'll see what fallout — if any — happens next over this public baiting of the regulator (and New Zealand women). But at least they were creative about it.
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