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Given recent events, it would be difficult to know that White Castle spent most of its lifeavoiding publicity.

Tune into the hit CBS show Undercover Boss tonight, and you’ll see a member of the fourth generation to run WhiteCastle going behind the scenes to witness – along with millions of TV viewers across the country -how the business is really run.

It’s becoming part of a trend. The company’s cult status increasingly is seen as a nice devicefor also helping to attract customers of entertainment or other goods.

Slyder cravings figured prominently in the 2004 movie Harold & Kumar go To White Castle. White Castle also has shown up in such areas ofpopular culture as hip T-shirts that department-store chain Lord & Taylor began selling in2004.

“The opportunities started to come to us,” said Jamie Richardson, vice president of governmentand shareholder relations at White Castle, who is not related to the family who owns the company.”We’ve never actively pursued them. We’re not running Super Bowl ads.”

Despite the recent spotlight, the descendants of White Castle founder Billy Ingram who still ownand operate the company say that they mostly keep the same low profile.

“I think we’re intrinsically shy,” Richardson said. “A lot of the culture of a company comesfrom its beginnings. from the very beginning, BiIly Ingram was an entrepreneur and an innovator,but at the same time, he got it that he should not create the company around his personality. Heput it back to the people running the restaurants. he really understood that.”

So, when the producers of a then-unknown reality show called Undercover Boss approached the privately held company early in 2009 to put one of theowners on national television, they might have expected to be politely turned down.

But they weren’t. instead, tonight’s edition of the show will feature Dave Rife, one of theowners of White Castle and great-grandson of Billy Ingram, as he attempts to go undercoverthroughout the company.

What persuaded Rife to take this unusual step into the limelight?

Many would say that it was the lure of good publicity. After all, some critics said after theseries premiered on Super Bowl Sunday that Undercover Boss is, in effect, wrote Hamilton Nolan of Gawker.com, “an hour-longcorporate public-relations message, broadcast to a far larger audience than the corporation couldever hope to reach itself.”

But White Castle officials and Undercover Boss producers say that was not the case. no one knew that the show wouldbe a hit when the producers approached White Castle, Richardson said.

Quite the contrary, he said. “There was a lot of uncertainty. We didn’t know for certain it wasactually going to happen, when it would air, if it would air.”

In fact, from a marketing and public-relations standpoint, the decision to accept the offer was”very dangerous,” said Joe Marconi, an expert in communication, marketing and crisis management andthe author of 15 books on the subjects.

To understand why, it’s important to know the conditions under which the show was produced.

This episode of Undercover Boss was shot in an intense 10 days in March in several White Castlelocations in Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana, including restaurants, the company’s bakery andits frozen-hamburger plant.

The producers asked to be exposed to as many employees as possible. There was no auditioning,scripting or pre-interviewing to find employees who might be more colorful or talkative, executiveproducer Eli Holzman said.

“You’re better served just getting out of the way and letting the experience unfold,” Holzmansaid.

The producers have cut down the many hours of film to make an hourlong show that, minuscommercials, has only about 40 minutes of content. The network and producers have complete controlof that content, and the folks at White Castle will see the finished product at the same time aseveryone else – tonight.

“The greatest risk is that they (White Castle) do not have approval of final cut,” Marconi said.”If CBS has final edit, CBS has an agenda and a motive totally different from White Castle. Thenetwork is looking for interesting, dramatic, colorful, humorous entertainment.

“That’s quite different from what White Castle is looking for, which is visibility andvalidation of quality,” Marconi said.

That lack of control did give White Castle pause, Rife said recently in his office at WhiteCastle headquarters.

“We did think about it for a while,” he said. “We pondered the question and had a meeting aboutit.”

“We don’t have editorial control, and we haven’t seen it,” Richardson said. “We know what Daveexperienced, but there are dozens of hours of film. We’ll find out on Sunday with the rest of thecountry.”

So why, amid so much uncertainty, did White Castle accept the offer?

“It seemed like such a huge opportunity to learn about the business on the front line,” Rifesaid. “If we were able to pull it off, to see the reality and find out how team members really feelabout us, it would be invaluable.”

What also tipped the scale, Richardson said, “was that we trust our team members and trust ourability to hear what’s good and what’s bad.”

In one promo for the show, Rife is caught mishandling bakery equipment and, in fact, “he reallygoofed up,” Richardson said. “He was working in the area where the buns are packaged – it takes afair amount of dexterity – and he did OK on the first couple. then his troubles began. It wasn’tpretty.”

Despite some bumbling by Rife, employees never guessed his identity and almost never asked whohe was, Richardson said. “Their understanding was he was a person exploring jobs in differentindustries at the entry level, and the film crew was doing a documentary about it.”

“Dave pulled it off brilliantly,” Holzman said. “We stand back and document and never know whatwill happen. when people have a real, genuine, emotional connection, that’s always interesting todiscover. Without giving away too much, that happens with Dave and one of the employees he workedalongside.”

The biggest challenge Rife faced in keeping his identity a secret came in Covington, Ky., at thefrozen-hamburger plant that his brother Brad runs. Rife managed to avoid detection by working onshifts when his brother was off – and by shaving. he had a beard for years before committing to dothe show.

White Castle officials said the undercover experience has already begun to bear fruit beyondwhat they hope will be good publicity.

“Right after we finished shooting, we sat down and had a big debriefing and began formulatingaction plans,” Rife said. “We’re now moving forward with those plans.”

Those include building a process to better identify and communicate with star employees, so thatthe company can tap into that talent for the future and keep them motivated in the present, Rifesaid.

Rife said any vulnerability to possible bad publicity is an acceptable risk, even if it leaveshim feeling nervous.

Neither he nor other members of his family will be showing up on White Castle ads or other TVshows. For them, Undercover Boss was all about making the company better, not about becomingcelebrities.

“My great-grandfather built this business with the idea that a happy team makes for happycustomers,” Rife said. “That is so true.”