6958: Holes In The Hardee’s Argument.

The New York Daily News story below warrants the brief MultiCultClassics perspective immediately following…

Hardee’s ad rejected for asking reviewers to choose between “A-holes” and “B-holes”

By Christine Roberts, Daily News Writer

Taste-tasting between “A-holes” and “B-holes” is appetizing, right? Hardee’s thinks so.

The fast-food chain has developed commercials—featuring its new Biscuit Holes—that ask consumers to choose between regular donut holes, labeled A-holes and the company’s own version, labeled “B-holes.”

The advertisements have drawn outrage from a North Carolina company, Boddie-Noell Enterprises, which owns almost 350 Hardee’s restaurants, the News & Observer reports.

Boddie-Noell chairman, Ben Mayo Boddie, has vowed to stop running the ads in any market that the company controls. Boddie has also asked Hardee’s parent company, CKE Restaurants of California, to follow his lead.

This is not the first time that Hardee’s has used risqué advertisements to appeal to its consumers. Hardee’s has previously released ads with celebrities, such as socialite Paris Hilton and “Top Chef” host Padma Lakshmi, seductively eating the company’s burgers.

CKE spokeswoman Jenna Petroff said that although the company does not plan to drop the ads, it will only run them in specific markets after 9 p.m. She said that Hardee’s advertisements are aimed at a “target audience of young, hungry guys.”

“We do not aim to exclude or offend any other group with our efforts, but merely to appeal and amuse a very specific audience,” Petroff said.

Um, based on her comments at the end of this story, CKE spokeswoman Jenna Petroff is an unqualified A-hole and B-hole.

First, if the commercial is offending your own owner-operators, you’ve got a corporate cultural problem. Like it or not, the people running your shitty restaurants represent the brand as much as the advertising—and maybe even more than the advertising.

Second, if the ad is targeting “young, hungry guys,” why does it depict a full range of hole reviewers?

Finally, Petroff displays a high degree of ignorance and arrogance by declaring, “We do not aim to exclude or offend any other group with our efforts, but merely to appeal and amuse a very specific audience.” Yo, beeotch, if you’re running a spot on network television, you cannot avoid having other groups see the message. To brush off the probability that your offensive garbage is invading other people’s space demonstrates some serious insensitivity. The next time Hardee’s must make a public response, company officials better tell Petroff to shut her pie hole.