Jaffe Juice

I was away at a conference with the whole hullabaloo with Paris Hilton and Carl's Jr broke - the commercial - which crashed Carl's Jr's server - featuring Paris Hilton doing Paris Hilton (washing a Bentley, lotsa water, suds, pouts, and gratuitous shots of her digging into a chicken burger)

I've taken a bit of time to visit the site, "spicyparis", viewed the commercials etc and here is my "critique" if you will have it.

Bottom line is that this really exposes both the sad state of affairs in the business right now and quite honestly, if this ends up being called a success, then we are one step away from joining our used car salesmen counterparts in the "respect, trust, integrity" department.

Let me take a step back for a moment. The corporate bigwigs at Carl's justified this effort based on the duh synergy between hot (spicy bbq chicken burger) and that's hot (Paris Hilton's signature line) OK, I'll give you that one. Now what?

What transpires is the confusing combination of sex and food and the not so subliminal message, "buy (and eat) this product because you're nothing more than a sex-starved young male who salivates at Paris Hilton (and will never have her) and therefore will salivate at the spicy bbq chicken sandwich (but this time you can have "her") as well. Hmm, 2-2. I stand corrected.

Then there's the website which has 3 interesting components to it:

1. The :60 too hot for TV version ('er does it count if I've watched the original Paris Hilton sex video 1000 times?)

2. Corporate commentary - 3 mins - (ick - couldn't you come up with something a little more consumer friendly)

3. Behind the scenes with Paris - 3 mins (where she says "that's hot" at least 50 times)

Damn it - 3 for 3 - good use of bonus footage to get scores of consumers (which we know to be true as the server crashed) to watch a combination of :30 (original) + :60 (internet version - no doubt) + :180 (Paris behind the scenes - ya think?) + maybe, just maybe :180 ("corporate" blah blah) All in all, we're looking at consumption experiences of around the 5 minute mark, which is not too shabby.

The Website (URL: spicyparis; name: Paris Hilton Commercial) does not have a shred of branding above the fold. This is both good and bad.

Ala Subservient Chicken, there is not much hard sell, however this is not an underground/viral effort like CP+B's original, landmark and Clio winning work for BK was. Arguably there SHOULD absolutely have been stronger branding. What we have here, is 1000% unabashed borrowed interest at least 2x over - not only in Paris Hilton, but she herself is leaning on her trademark "that's hot" line.

What saddens me here is that this is nothing more than the "go daddy" efforts rehashed and repurposed. When no one is prepared to take a risk anymore, the biggest risk taken is to drink from the swill of cheap laughs, old ideas and appealing to the lowest common denominator.

Legitimate marketers and their agents are most likely staring at this campaign and its "perceived success" in terms of buzz, visibility etc., wondering what to do next; where to go from here; possibly thinking about how base and worthless their profession has become. Or perhaps they're ramming their heads against a brick wall cursing the fact they didn't go there first, in which case I hope it hurts REAL bad.

There may be tie-in to the word "hot", but then what? Does this make me care more about Carl's? Not a bit. Do I feel like a chicken burger? A little, just not sure I want it from Carls. Do I feel compelled to find out where my nearest Carls is? Not really. This is the danger associated with borrowed interest. The question is to what extent consumers are participating purely for PH or to find out more about the product. We all know the answer to this.

If Carl's Jr is out to the corner the market for teen boys, so be it, but I suspect they'll need a little more traffic than that.

Will it put them on the map? Maybe. Will it lead to sustained and loyal patronage. Not unless you dress up the cashiers in leather and lace and whip your customers into submission. It's a slippery slope to slide my friends, I hope you brought along your KY Jelly.

Jordin Mendelsohn from Carl's agency, Mendelsohn/Zien Advertising (who?) says, "you call it edgy, we call it getting noticed." This is the creative/right brain equivalent to "reach" (where else can you reach x million consumers at one time) - it's very old marketing I'm afraid to resort to shock tactics in order to get in front of consumers.

Even though one could argue (as I did and unwillingly gave credit where it was kinda due) that the use of several new marketing approaches such as interactive/communal marketing helped to extend the campaign, ultimately I'm taking a purist position and challenge Brad Haley, marketing honcho at Carls, to share store traffic and sales data - both short to medium term - to prove that this attempt made sense and was worth the efforts.