It seems the “Spicy Paris” commercial, featuring Paris Hilton, was a big hit both in generating site traffic for Carl’s Jr. as well as, perhaps, influencing hamburger sales for the chain.
According to competitive intelligence service Hitwise, searches for the term “paris hilton” grew 102 percent and queries for “carls jr” grew an astounding 802 percent between the weeks ending May 21, 2005 and May 28, 2005. Comparatively, brand searches for Burger King – in the midst of its co-promotion of Star Wars: Sith Sense – increased just 52 percent during the same time period.
Hitwise Clickstream data reveal that, for the week ending May 28, 2005, a full 58.4 percent of those visiting carlsjr.com continued on to spicyparis.com, where the controversial advertisement was available for download. Perhaps more important for actual hamburger sales, 7.4 percent of visitors to www.carlsjr.com continued directly on to a Carl’s Jr. store locator Web site. While Carl’s hasn’t released detailed sales figures for this period, indicators do point “Spicy Paris” having influence.
“By examining both search volume and clickstream data for this campaign, it is clear that the Spicy Paris campaign had two positive results for Carl’s Jr.”, said Hitwise VP of Research Bill Tancer. “First it raised awareness for the brand, but also prompted an immediate increase in consumer searches for local Carl’s Jr. Restaurants.”
Who said sex doesn’t sell.
