The Day Carls Jr. Realized That They’d Better Start Respecting Women

About two years ago, I wrote a blog called “A Letter From A Dad To Carl’s Jr. and The Women in Their Commercials.” That article set off a Twitter storm with this tweet: “Love your food, hate your commercials” which subsequently bombarded Carls Jr.’s Twitter mentions feed. When it happened… it told me a couple things:

1. There are still a ton of great and moral people in this world who are willing to stand up for what is right… and there aren’t as many bad, immoral, and raunchy people in the world as we might think.
2. When you stand up for what is right… great things can happen.

Over the last couple years, good men and women took to the internet to make their opposition against Carls Jr. known. They did it with their words, their blogs, their tweets, and their Facebook statuses. Comment after comment, tweet after tweet, Facebook share after Facebook share came in with people who vowed not to support Carls Jr. because of their completely unnecessary assault on the true beauty and sanctity of women. Men and women from every background and faith stood on their principles and made Carls Jr. feel it where it hurt the most, their pocketbooks. The Famous Star… with all that charbroiled goodness became… well… not so famous.

Today, Carls Jr. is finally pulling the plug on all of their sleazy ads. They’re learning that if they want to stay in business, they’d better start respecting women and not assuming all men are just sex crazed oafs. Here’s what Jason Norcross, the creative director of the ad agency who produced the Carls Jr. ads of the past had to say:

“It was time to evolve. It was time to change. Those ads just weren’t driving business as they once did.” Norcross went on to say that the ads weren’t even working among long-time customers, who tended to be “young, hungry guys.”

In all of this, I’m not going to reach out and give Carl’s a pat on the back for doing the right thing. They aren’t trying to do the right thing. Based on all of the explanations from those that are making the decisions, it appears to be strictly a financial move. If the commercials still worked… they’d most likely keep producing them. Ex-CEO Andrew Pudzer said that “young, hungry guys aren’t as affected by the racy ads with the swimsuit models because you can get a lot of that on the internet now. It’s not like it was 10, 12 years ago when we started this. Young guys today, the millennial young guys, are concerned with, where do you source your beef? What kind of cooking system do you have?”

What Pudzer is saying is that porn is everywhere now and that their commercials don’t have the same effect that they once had. In effect… people are desensitized. While I would agree with the notion of desensitization, I also strongly believe that there’s more to why Carls Jr. has lost so many patrons. I believe that it’s because of a bunch of good moms and dads that started boycotting them. More than we think or know. More than Carls Jr. could have possibly comprehended. I think that dads stopped taking their kids there after baseball games. Moms signed petitions. And millennials got sick of the blatant disrespect of women’s bodies. I think they under-estimated the purchasing power of middle-aged families who shuttered every time one of those obscene commercials came on. I think they ultimately under-estimated the amount of good that is still in this world… and they learned it in the short span of about 2 years.

So here’s to all the good that is still left in the world. Way to make your voices heard!