a promotion for Wendy's restaurants' famous advertising campaign featuring Clara Peller. The advertising campaign ended in 1985 after Peller performed in a commercial for Prego pasta sauce, saying "I found it, I really found it", a phrase alluding to the beef in the listener's mind. There were many "Where's the beef?" promotional items, including bumper stickers, frisbees, clothing patches, a Milton Bradley game, and more. In 2011, Wendy's revived the phrase for its new ad campaign, finally answering its own question with "Here's the beef". During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, when stores were experiencing a shortage of beef, Wendy's revived the ad. To launch their new breakfast menu in Canada, Wendy’s released a new advertisement campaign called “Where’s the Bacon?” as a callback to the “Where’s the Beef?”. The new campaign is similar to its older counterpart, except it focuses on the amount of bacon in breakfast sandwiches rather than beef size. For the 2023 Daytona 500, Legacy Motor Club driver Noah Gragson, sponsored by Wendy's, uses the No. 42 Chevrolet Camaro carrying "The Beef" on the hood, and a video released by the team featured Gragson using the phrase in the promotional video. Credits William Welter, the executive vice president of Wendy's International, led the marketing team at the time of the campaign. The commercial was directed by Joe Sedelmaier as part of a campaign by the advertising agency Dancer Fitzgerald Sample. It was written by Cliff Freeman. The marketing and promotion campaign were created by Alan Hilburg and the Burson-Marsteller team under the direction of Denny Lynch, the vice president of corporate communications at Wendy's. Gary Hart and Walter Mondale The phrase became associated with the 1984 U.S. presidential election. During primaries in the spring of 1984, when the commercial was at its height of popularity, Democratic candidate and former Vice President Walter Mondale used the phrase to sum up his arguments that program policies championed by his rival, Senator Gary Hart, were insubstantial, beginning with a March 11, 1984, televised debate at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta prior to the New York and Pennsylvania primaries. Hart had moved his candidacy from dark horse to the lead over Mondale based on allegedly superficial similarities to John F. Kennedy, and his repeated use of the phrase "new ideas". When Hart once again used the slogan in the debate, Mondale leaned forward and said, "When I hear your new ideas,