As the worth of Super Bowl ads rises — with 30-second spots reportedly going for greater than $8 million earlier this yr — brands proceed to seek out recent ways to tap into attention across the big game without paying to be in it, including by focusing on the post-game Monday.
Fast-food chain Carl’s Jr. this yr iterated on a Free Burger Day concept from 2024 by offering free Hangover Burgers on a day it rechristened National Hangover Day. Key to Carl’s Jr.’s Super Bowl-adjacent campaign was social media star Alix Earle, who starred in a spot that nodded to the racy ads the chain was known for within the 2000s and 2010s.
The partnership was one among the top-performing campaigns that ran in the times leading as much as the Super Bowl, with an Instagram post that notched a 47% engagement rate and helped the brand secure a 91% increase in followers, per Metricool social data shared with Marketing Dive.
“We did not have a spot within the Super Bowl, but we had a lot buzz on social media, between the free giveaway and the campaign itself,” said Kara Gasbarro, vice chairman of creative strategy at Carl’s Jr. parent CKE Restaurants. “It was a pleasant fit for us to reintroduce Carl’s Jr. to a younger audience.”
Carl’s Jr. turned a Los Angeles location right into a one-night-only after-hours party.
Courtesy of Carl’s Jr.
Carl’s Jr. has worked to construct on the success of the National Hangover Day campaign by iterating on its partnership with Earle, an influencer with 7.5 million TikTok followers who has also linked with brands like Poppi, Pantene and Hawaiian Tropic for a series of efforts. Beyond her reach and increased profile, Earle presented a possibility for the chain to pair with an envoy as daring and audacious as its menu offerings.
“We met Alix where she was, so far as being authentic,” Gasbarro said. “That was really vital to us with audiences, especially a really social-forward, young audience … you wish the content to feel fun and buzz-worthy, but you wish it to feel real… what she would say, and the way she would say it.”
Cheesy nostalgia
The chain in May hosted Club Carl’s, turning a Los Angeles location right into a one-night-only after-hours party (a possibility for the brand to capture content) featuring Earle, a DJ and a probability to craft a personalised Build Your Own Bag value offering. Earlier this month, Carl’s Jr. teamed with Earle again as a part of a “Kay So?” campaign that promotes a Queso Crunch Burger that features cheese sauce and tortilla strips.
In the spot, Earle enjoys an evening at a club where all the pieces she sees — from shot glasses, to going-out tops, to lip gloss — is made from queso. Eventually, Earle heads to a drive-thru to satisfy her craving, and as she takes a bite of the burger, Paris Hilton pulls up in a Bentley and updates her signature catchphrase to match the campaign’s play on words: “Kay, in order that’s hot.”
Adding Hilton to the combo allowed Carl’s Jr. to tap into nostalgia, a ubiquitous a part of cultural marketing for the past few years. Hilton starred in an infamous 2005 ad that was typical of the chain’s promoting, which could be best summarized as blondes in bikinis eating burgers. Earle’s efforts for the brand have shared that tone, which Carl’s Jr. had not got down to mimic.
“From a technique perspective, it really was trying to seek out that authentic fit versus going back and recreate what we did before,” Gasbarro said. “I do not think it was intentional… that is what an audience today would react to.”
While Earle and Hilton have featured in traditional TV ads for the brand, Carl’s Jr. has worked to increase the campaigns in other paid and owned channels, in addition to those of their brand ambassadors. Like other fast-food and QSR chains, loyalty can also be a key a part of its multichannel strategy; customers using the chain’s app unlock more options for the Build Your Own Bag offering.
“When it involves something like a loyalty platform, how can we make it unique and different and reward that behavior?” Gasbarro said. “How can we grow those platforms to make them more interesting and unique for the consumers?”
Read the total article here
