Carl's Jr. Retires Sexy Ads

Last month, Andrew Puzder, former CEO of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee's, announced that the company will no longer produce controversial commercials. Its popular commercials, featuring celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton usually overshadowed the burger restaurant itself. “You and I may certainly like the ads we’ve been running a long time, but the younger guys can get that on the internet,” says Puzder. “They are more interested in where your beef is from. … You can get sex on the internet—you don’t need a Carl’s Jr. or Hardee’s ad.” Jennifer Siebel Newsom , filmmaker and founder and CEO of The Representation Project, (which challenges limiting stereotypes) thinks Carl's Jr. has more work to do, in an open letter to "Mr. Hardee" (introduce in Carl Jr's new ad campaing) in Adweek yesterday: "Your decades-long campaign that consistently demeaned and degraded women cannot be written off as just a mistake. Rather, your ads were indicative and representative of a larger culture in the United States whereby women are systematically objectified and demeaned: where one in five women are victims of domestic violence, where one in four women are victims of sexual assault, where women own vastly less wealth and earn vastly less money than men and where women are grossly underrepresented in positions of power and influence (ahem, look at your own leadership)." Puzder nor CKE (the corporate company of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's) haven't responded to Newsom's letter.