Ruby Tuesday Gets Dirty With 'Fun Between The Buns' Campaign

Ruby TuesdayRuby Tuesday's latest ad campaign is drawing attention to the "hot, buttery" buns used in a new line of pretzel cheeseburgers by encouraging customers to have #FunBetweenTheBuns.

The casual dining mega-chain is combining a series of four entirely unsubtle video spots (featuring what one might call "mood music" and a flirtatious female voiceover) with an open call for customers to post pictures of their burgers on Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag #funbetweenthebuns. The luckiest users will have their dining exploits posted at funbetweenthebuns.com.

According to social analytics tracker Topsy, the hashtag has been tweeted more than 3,000 times over the past month. The reviews, as you can imagine, have been mixed.

Here's what people are saying:

And here's how Ruby Tuesday has been responding:

For what it's worth, the campaign is probably not for everyone. Ruby Tuesday is currently working to move downmarket to cater toward diners on a budget, after the brand's attempt at becoming fancier went down in flames as the recession hit.

While the crude humor might be a bit raunchy for an upper-class audience, it could conceivably hit the right tenor with customers who appreciate Ruby Tuesdays' disregard for the mores of so-called "polite society." That is, of course, if those customers find the unconventional ads clever enough to be funny.