United Poultry Concerns
Promoting the compassionate and respectful
treatment of domestic fowl

PO Box 150 • Machipongo, VA 23405-0150
(757) 678-7875 • FAX (757) 678-5070
www.UPC-online.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
May 3, 2002
Contact: Karen Davis 757-678-7875
Lewd Chicken "Nuggets" Ad Draws Fire from Georgia Resident
"It Will Be Off the Air Tomorrow." - Hardee's Franchise Marketing Director

Machipongo, VA - Earlier this week a Columbus, Georgia resident saw a horrible TV ad promoting Hardee's chicken products. She immediately called the company's regional marketing director to urge that the ad be pulled. Robert Gilman, marketing director for the Hardee's franchise in Columbus, GA, Albany, GA, southern Alabama, and part of Atlanta, told her "We'll pull the ad."

Today, when the offended viewer called back, Gilman told her the ad "will be off the air starting tomorrow." The ad, first used to promote Carl's Jr., a California chain owned by CKE Restaurants, which also owns Hardee's, shows a group of 5 men dressed as gloved "scientists" examining a live chicken in a prurient search for "meat" parts including an implicit anal search of the bird. The ad evokes vivisection, gang rape, and playing with a helpless victim prior to an assault.

Last January, United Poultry Concerns launched a campaign against the ad, which drew an article in the Los Angeles Times on January 16, after California residents protested to our office and unavailingly to CKE Restaurants. The company blew off our charges, while supporting them in a letter from CKE correspondent Peter B. Espinosa, Jr. on January 25, stating that the "nuggets" ad targets their "most frequent customers . . . the young male audience."

Comments by CKE Marketing Vice President Robert Wisely and Mendelsohns/Zien CEO Richard Zien further show the contempt for animals and women to which the "nuggets" ad appeals. Robert Wisely told Carol Adams, the author of The Sexual Politics of Meat who called to protest, that she had a "crazy, limited viewpoint"; and Richard Zien bragged to Adweek about receiving 5,000 angry e-mails, "I was quite amused by it."

"Adults concerned about the effect of 'adult' entertainment on children and teenagers should think twice about this chicken 'nuggets' ad, which shows pleasure in taunting a helpless creature as foreplay to slaughtering her," says United Poultry Concerns President Karen Davis. "CKE Restaurants and Mendelsohns/Zien are selling not only dead birds but a desensitizing macho mentality. We look to Robert Gilman, who has shown decency towards our concerns, to keep his word about pulling the ad 'starting tomorrow.' "

United Poultry Concerns is a nonprofit organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl. For more information visit www.UPC-online.org

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