CHATSWORTH, Calif. - CKE Restaurants, the corporations that owns Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. fast food chains, is garnering the scornful eye of conservative watchdog the American Decency Association (ADA), for what the group is calling a “noticeable history of sexual imagery” in its advertisements.
The American Decency Association President Bill Johnson told conservative news organization OneNewsNow that he sees the latest Hardee’s ad as “erotic…[it features] a young man that is just really looking, gazing at her 'parts' and …she’s being accentuated in a very pornographic or indecent way.”
Johnson and his pro-family group have taken issue with CKE using Playboy founder Hugh Hefner as a spokesman for the chains in 2003; depicting a mechanical bull ridden by a scantily clad female in television ads the same year, as well as the use of heiress Paris Hilton wearing revealing clothing and making “sleazy movements” for a popular Carl’s Jr. ad in 2005.
“The pattern for the Carl’s Jr./Hardees restaurants,” Johnson told OneNewsNow, "has been one of very over-the-edge ads.”
Johnson said he and the ADA have been imploring CKE CEO Andrew Puzder to stop the company’s current trend of marketing campaigns.
