ST. LOUIS - Two weeks since serving up its Monster Thickburger packing 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat, Hardee's looks to beef up sales with a new multimillion-dollar ad campaign.
Some may wonder whether that's even needed, given the St. Louis-based restaurant chain's claims that the self-described "monument of decadence" has done fine by free word of mouth.
Just a day after the Monster's rollout Nov. 15, Jay Leno quipped on "The Tonight Show" that the megaburger "actually comes in a little cardboard box shaped like a coffin." On David Letterman's "Late Show," an actor playing the chief of Hardee's corporate parent in a sketch clutches his chest, then keels over dead when asked of any health risks of a burger that size.