Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s owner hires new media agency as CMO plots marketing changes

The owner of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s has selected Camelot Strategic Marketing & Media as the media agency of record in the U.S. for the two fast food brands. The decision is part of a larger shift in marketing strategy including giving each brand a unique voice and media approach according to Tana Davila, who took over last year as chief marketing officer for CKE Restaurants, which owns the chains.

Davila said CKE's media approach hadn’t “evolved with the times.”

“The media landscape has changed pretty profoundly since 2018 and 2019,” Davila said. “A lot of the change in consumer dynamics I think was accelerated by the pandemic. I don't know that our media approach really was reflective of that. And so we had a heavy position in linear TV at a time when, candidly, the majority of our customers don't have satellite or cable anymore. And so it was really a need to shift to a more digital forward and connected TV forward approach.”

Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s had previously worked with RPA.

Davila hired Camelot without a formal pitch, having worked with the agency during her time as a marketing executive at P.F. Chang’s. Camelot, which currently has 160 employees, also handles media for clients such as Michaels, TurboTax, Experian and Nordstrom.

For Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, Davila is working on “strategically separating the brands” in terms of marketing strategy and giving each one an “independent voice,” which is different from how the two have previously been marketed.

‘Very different brands’

“Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, in my opinion, are very different brands, but had been marketed together for a good portion of the last 20 years,” Davila said.

From September: Carl's Jr. and Hardee's get a design makeover

Davila said there are still joint ads being pushed out, and a full separation won’t be seen until later in the year. But CKE has seen “momentum” from the early separation changes that have been made so far. These changes could “potentially” mean looking for separate creative agencies for each brand, but nothing has been decided yet. 72andSunny now handles creative for both brands.

“I think we're looking at more project-based work until we kind of land on where we ultimately want to go,” Davila said.

Targeting by radius

What particularly stood out about Camelot is its data-driven approach, according to Davila, as the brands look to invest less in national linear TV in favor of digital and connected TV. The brands will still show up on local linear TV where it makes sense as they switch to targeting consumers based on proximity to a restaurant rather than targeting an entire city.

“There's an opportunity for us to really reassess our footprint and understand where it makes sense to buy at a designated marketing area [such as a city like Phoenix or Atlanta] level versus putting a radius around a location,” Davila said. “Then that creates media efficiency, which then can be reinvested back into spending in core markets.”

Media buying at a DMA level for Los Angeles makes sense, according to Davila—but not so much in rural areas. “There's a lot of folks that are being served ads that are 10-plus miles from a location and very unlikely to visit,” Davila added.

An ongoing revamp

Davila says Carl’s Jr. is known for being an L.A.-centric brand with big bold flavors. Its ad legacy has included models such as Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton, which it has walked away from over the years. The Hardee’s audience is vastly different, according to Davila.

“I was actually born and raised in the Midwest, so I think of it [Hardee’s] as kind of a legacy burger brand—but how the business actually manifests today is actually quite different,” Davila said.

“The majority of our sales volume is actually at breakfast, it's very well established in particularly Southeast markets … and a lot of our locations are in smaller towns of 10,000 people or less. And so when you think about those two different types of consumers, they're quite different. And so I think trying to market them together is quite challenging.”

Carl’s Jr. spent $76.5 million on U.S. measured media in 2022, down from $83.2 million in 2021, according to Vivvix, including paid social data from Pathmatics. Hardee’s spent $40.3 million on U.S.-measured media in 2022, below the $48.5 million spent in 2021.

The media agency switch is the latest change for CKE, which last month named former Papa John’s Chief Operating Officer Max Wetzel as its new CEO.

In September, Carl's Jr. and Hardee's unveiled new logos and uniforms accompanied by new ads that featured fake newscasters. In May 2022, CKE  announced a $500 million co-investment with franchisees to modernize its store base and technology over the next four to six years.