Burgers and Bikinis
If one more over sensualized hamburger advertisement is shown, I may never eat another burger.
Seeing a relatively attractive woman in a bikini chowing down on a hamburger in slow motion cannot possibly be the best way to advertise fast food. Nonetheless, more and more of these ads crop up every day.
Somehow, companies such as Carl’s Jr. and Burger King must think that showing a supermodel-thin person eating their burgers will make people think that eating their 1000 calorie meals make you look more attractive. This not only makes no sense, but also doesn’t really appeal to me. These ads try to make it seem as though stuffing your face with a burger makes you appear attractive, or that the burgers are the best looking and tastiest food in the world. In reality, the burgers that are advertised are hardly half the size as they appear on billboards or television. They look about as appetizing as dead cows. Literally.
Bad puns aside, the burgers aren’t living up to their advertisement not-quite-doppelgangers. The burgers in the commercials and on the billboards always have golden lights shone on them and are fluffed up with extra everything. This further attempt to make them look appetizing also makes them appear grossly oversized.
As if that’s not enough, occasionally you’ll see an advertisement that displays an unearthly skinny supermodel stuffing her face with a burger in a field of allegedly happy cows. If this isn’t a violation of nature, I don’t know what is. Poor cows.
The sheer number of commercials like these that play is overwhelming and unnecessary. If the fast food companies want their commercials to make any lasting effects on the audience, they are going to have to think of a way to differentiate from the dozens of other companies using the exact same advertisements.
This trend isn’t just limited to burgers. Similar commercials have been made for tacos, slushies, and pretty much everything short of kid’s toys.
Instead of over sensualizing their advertisements, companies should portray the food that they really sell. The people portrayed in the advertisements should at least look like people who have seen a burger before, not toothpick thin supermodels. Whether this means changing the food to match the commercials or changing the commercials to match the food, I’d rather see the truth of what they are selling.
