Stores Magazine - October 2007 - (Page 126) POSTSCRIPT lastlaugh Celebrating Flat Buns WHO LIKES flat buns? Who doesn’t, asks the newest series of ads from CKE Restaurants, owner of the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's chains. The Calif.-based fast-feeder is celebrating flat buns with a TV commercial and accompanying rap tune to promote the Patty Melt Burger, a new offering made with grilled rye bread. This latest, slightly irreverent campaign – which mixes creative license and word play -- fits neatly into the company’s now decade-long strategy of utilizing innovative advertising to appeal to hungry young guys. “The Patty Melt is an American classic but the burger . . . needed an image makeover to become more relevant for today’s fast-food consumers,” says Brad Haley, executive vice president of marketing for Carl’s Jr. restaurants. “Our advertising agency developed a rap song to emphasize one of the unique aspects of the burger: the use of flat, grilled rye bread as opposed to the traditional round-top bun. “That rap song, which originally ran as a radio spot for our Hardee’s chain, became so popular with the public . . . that we decided to make it into a music video TV commercial for the burger to run at both chains,” he says. Hoping to give flat buns the respect and admiration they’ve been missing, Haley reports that Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s also conducted an internet survey of 2,000 Americans to rank the flattest female and male celebrity buns. Topping the ladies’ list were Nicole Richie and her ex-“Simple Life” co-star (and former CKE commercial star) Paris Hilton. Ryan Seacrest and David Letterman sat atop the male category. that the bird had been chased from his nearby farm by a coyote. Emus can’t fly, but have been known to run at speeds up to 40 miles per hour. Luxury Lederhosen IF YOU’VE been longing for upscale festwear, you’re in luck. Austrian designer Christian Wohlmuther is taking orders for personalized luxury lederhosen embellished with an array of stones, including garnets, rubies, emeralds – even diamonds. (Lederhosen – for those not at the forefront of fashion -- are traditional short, leather trousers that some Austrian and German men wear to festivals or on special occasions.) Wohlmuther, who owns a clothing business that sells traditional Austrian attire, says the cost of his creations varies depending on the decoration. A pair of diamond-studded luxury lederhosen sold for a cool $114,000 to a German buyer who lives in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Big Bird Goes Shopping ATTENTION, Wal-Mart shoppers: there’s no special on emu. It’s just visiting. A wayward emu managed to wing its way to a Wal-Mart Supercenter in West Bend, Wis. The bird, which arrived around 6 a.m. (presumably to beat the crowds) never made it into the store. Instead, employees corralled the big bird with shopping carts, preventing “Myron” from ever reaching the pet food aisle. A store manager fed Myron grapes and apples in an attempt to calm the bird inside the makeshift enclosure – and, of course, uphold tenets of good customer service. Richard Takacs, owner of the 3-year-old emu, speculated 126 STORES / OCTOBER 2007 WWW.STORES.ORG ©The New Yorker Collection 1997 Tom Cheney from cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved. http://cartoonbank.com http://WWW.STORES.ORG
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