Jack in the Box Sustains Super Bowl Ad Momentum Online
Campaign begun with big game ad finds legs online.
Campaign begun with big game ad finds legs online.
Since the appearance of its Super Bowl ad last month, in which its familiar bubble-headed mascot had an unfortunate meeting with a bus, fast food chain Jack in the Box has sustained considerable online engagement leading up to a refresh of its brand. The effort will culminate in the launch of a new Web site and logo on March 16.
The campaign, “Hang in there Jack,” has brought considerable traffic and user interaction with the company’s presences on Facebook, YouTube and MySpace.
After the Super Bowl commercial, a hospital drama unfolded over the following month on the site hangintherejack.com. The site, set up as a blog, contains videos from YouTube following the action surrounding Jack’s accident and treatment in the hospital. Entries also included instructions on how to send wishes to Jack, and wish his wife happy Valentine’s Day.
Through the course of the campaign over 67,000 people signed up to receive updates on Jack’s condition through the Web site, and more than 77,000 get well wishes and videos were posted on the Web site and on his Facebook and MySpace pages, the company said. During the coma a Jack in the Box Twitter feed was maintained and grew to 5,634 followers.
The hangintherejack.com site will start to wind down now that Jack is out of his coma, recovered, and the campaign is moving to its next phase. “We’re going to send thank you coupons to those that were involved,” said Terri Graham, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Jack in the Box.
The campaign’s next phase will bring the launch of a new Web site and logo. The logo will maintain the traditional red color and box shape. However it will take on a 3D appearance and just says “Jack” within the box, with “in the box” underneath. “Our current logo is over 20 years old; it just made sense with everything we’re doing to evolve the logo,” said Graham. “We took our key equities and made it current and fresh.”
A new site will go live on March 16. “Consumers go to Web sites for different reasons,” Graham said. “For us it could be for the menu, or it could be because they want to be entertained, and Jack allows us to do that.” The mascot will have his own virtual office with some activities for visitors. One of these will let consumers make personalized phone calls to friends. Jack in the box hired Veratek to create interactive voice response (define) scenarios such as breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, or calling in sick from work.
Apollo Interactive handled the effort, working with Secret Weapon Marketing for certain components and Duffy and Partners for the logo.
The chain’s success with the viral effort and related social media platforms will lead to future campaigns. “We’ve had tremendous success with social media, and our intent is to keep going. Jack has quite a few friends on Facebook,” said Graham.