A Tale of Two Burgers: Harvey’s Versus Hardee’s

By Sarah Lazarovic

The girl with the fist in her mouth was paid to do as much by burger purveyors to the south, Hardee’s. The ad is actually called ‘Fist Girl.’ In an awesome Slate ad report, Seth Stevenson talks about the oversexed ads the revamped fast food co. is using to sell bigger burgers to the 18-34 year-old meat-eatin’ male.
As you can see by the header, we’re setting up a little cross-border compare and contrast, red meat style. The Hardee’s campaign reminds us of similarly named, similarly burgered, similarly big, Harvey’s. In 2003 they went bigtime with their quest to capture big boys and their big appetites.And they appear to have done a pretty good job of it. ‘Long Live the Grill’ is still going strong, and, despite the grilled sandwich trend, and the complete lack of even a pretense of effort to court the lady who lunches on Alberta beef, most people really can’t complain about Harvey’s ads. They’re simple, well-designed, and kinda retro chic. Meanwhile, Hardee’s, a company with a similar product to hype, and a similarly-identified target demographic, has decided to force beautiful models to shove their hands in their mouths. TOist won’t pronounce judgement until the results are in, but we think we our homegrown burger banners are winning thus far.