Kate Upton Eats Burgers Much Sexier Than Kim Kardashian, Carl’s Jr. CEO Says, Defending Erotic Ads
Kate Upton is much more sexy than Kim Kardsashian — when it comes to eating hamburgers. In fact, says the CEO of the 74-year-old nationwide hamburger chain, despite her numerous nude photo spreads and her status as one of the top sex symbols of the current era, Kim Kardashian’s approach to hamburger consumption was so prim that Carl’s Jr. decided to use her in an ad for salad instead.
“Kim really couldn’t eat the burgers. Luckily, we had a salad we were promoting, so we used Kim in the salad ad,” 65-year-old Andy Pudzer claimed. “But if we had not been promoting a salad, we probably never would’ve done an ad with Kim, because she wasn’t good at eating the burger. She’s too tiny. She’s really little.”
Kim’s reps denied that the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star wasn’t sexy enough to eat a Carl’s Jr. hamburger, but rather she, herself, chose the salad ad because it fit more comfortably with her “brand.”
The series of advertisements featuring models, often wearing next to nothing, consuming overstuffed hamburgers while going through a series of gyrations that can only be described as sexually suggestive in the extreme, began in 2005 and have since become an indispensable part of American pop culture, Pudzer believes.
“People watch for the ads, and want to know when the next one’s coming out,” he said in an lengthy interview with Associated Press.
But the series of ads almost never happened, because the advertising executive who came up with the idea to depict Paris Hilton, at the height of her fame, washing an expensive Bentley sedan while clad in a bikini and taking bites out of a sloppy, dripping burger, later changed his mind, worrying that the ad went too far.
“It started with an ad agency we used to have called Mendelsohn Zien, and a guy named Jordin Mendelsohn. He came up with the idea to use Paris Hilton in an ad and make it a very cutting edge ad, where she was washing a Bentley,” Pudzer recalled in the interview.
“Actually, he tried to chicken out… He called and said, ‘I don’t think we should do this ad, I want to talk to you.’ But I called him back and I said, ‘I want to do the Paris Hilton ad.’ “
While Paris Hilton at the time was more of a reality TV star and socialite than a model, the ads have since become launching pads for the careers of young models.
The company last year produced an ad featuring the newest Sports Illustrated swimsuit modeling sensation, Hannah Ferguson.
According to Pudzer, Ferguson told the company, “All us girls at Sports Illustrated, we all talk about who’s going to do the next Carl’s Jr. ad and how can we be the model that does the next ad?”
“We have a history of picking these young women before they hit their peak,” he said. “We put Kate Upton in an ad a month before she got the cover for Sports Illustrated.”
The result — the sexy Kate Upton Carl’s Jr. burger ad — can be viewed at this link.
[Images: YouTube Screen Grabs]
