Through its Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. brands in the Heartland and on the West Coast of America, respectively, CKE Restaurants emphasized food quality for years, including trailblazing charbroiled burgers. In recent years, the regional burger chains were notorious for leveraging sex appeal—for some, too much sex appeal—by using scantily clad models such as Kate Upton and Paris Hilton in their campaigns.
But under new CMO Jeff Jenkins, Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s are not bringing sexy back. Instead, they’re returning to the message of food quality and value that made them regional powerhouses, giving them a strong foundation and identity as fast food preferences evolved.
Pretty excited to see our new campaign in the wild! https://t.co/JEoV2ksPnv
— Jeff Jenkins (@jeffmjenkins) September 25, 2017
His approach is exemplified by a new ad campaign for the “$5 All-Star Meal,” which launched during Advertising Week in New York and emphasizes a whole meal full of great food, but at the value price of five dollars.
The meal options include, for example, a charbroiled double cheeseburger and a chicken filet sandwich as the centerpieces, or a charbroiled double cheeseburger and onion rings. Each $5 All-Star Meal comes with a small order of natural-cut fries, 20-ounce drink and fresh-baked chocolate chip cookie.
“Usually there’s no real meal in a value meal; it’s two items for $4, or three for $5,” Jenkins told brandchannel. “You can mix and match all you want but you’re not going to get everything. We have four All-Star boxes that you can choose from. We can be a champion for the customer.”
Jenkins joined the CKE team with more than 15 years of experience in digital and deep food service marketing, most recently at Whole Foods Market, where he launched the company into the digital era, becoming one of the nation’s leaders in grocery delivery in less than two years.
Prior to Whole Foods Market, he was the Director of Digital Experience and New Platforms for Taco Bell and was responsible for the development and launch of the Cannes Lion-winning mobile ordering app.
We spoke with Jenkins (right) about his new role and the sibling brands he’s responsible for nurturing and growing.
Let’s begin at the beginning—how did you get started in brand marketing?
It’s pretty varied. I started out and worked across multiple categories. I worked in PR and media relations for NASA; I still geek out that I was standing in the back of the control room when the Mars Rover landed and shot out the first pictures.
Then I spent eight years in the Yum family of brands, including leading some digital efforts at Taco Bell, and then I went to Whole Foods to lead digital marketing. Jason Marker took the CEO job here at CKE and I hold him in the highest regard for turning around KFC, and as a human being.
What do you see as the opportunity to grow these iconic brands for CKE?
You have two distinct brands that are nationally known but are regional powerhouses. They have an unbelievable food quality story that isn’t widely known. That hasn’t gotten out there and when you talk with our customers, our biggest fans are passionate about these brands, and when you tell them about the food quality stories they’re shocked. Then they understand that someone comes to the store at 4 a.m. to make the biscuits out of a very simple recipe.
The brands have had a bit of a rough go over the last few years, a style of advertising and product that was being marketed that was very successful but grew a bit stale over the last few years. So the chance to come in and become part of a turnaround story was great.
Sex sells, so what was wrong, in your opinion, with the these brands’ previous sexy campaigns?
It was two-fold. The ads grabbed attention. And you have to look at what was being paired with the products, which was big, indulgent burgers. You want to be a place where people can enjoy great food every day. You don’t want to have a monster burger every day. We became a bit of a special occasion stop; “Get the baby-back-rib burger.” This new campaign around the $5 box is reminding people of the amazing quality of our food, but we have everyday eats as well, at a price that allows you to come more often.
What did you observe or learn from other chains about value marketing in fast food in the last few years?
What’s been going on in value is another place we feel it’s gotten out of whack. You had successful value promotions over the years and that has become not such a great value anymore. It’s at a point where value menus are sort of leftover items that no one really wants to buy. They’ve been cost-optimized or changed over the years or you’re getting fewer of them. We feel we can provide a fantastic value meal, and variety.
You’re facing tough competitors, from McDonald’s to gourmet burger chains like Smashburger. How do you position these brands in their company?
It’s really an interesting question. In the recent past we’ve gone toward the better burger space with more indulgent burgers. Whether it’s Carl’s Jr. or Hardee’s we’ve always stood for quality. That is the position we’ll continue to have.
If you ask consumers, that’s what they play back to you—that we have the best burgers in QSR. You’ll see us focus on having that positioning, and taste as well.
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