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Hardee's and Carl's Jr. promotes new chicken sandwich with Adult Swim partnership (Score 22)

chicken sandwiches. It is being promoted through multiple 15-second national TV spots. I recommend contacting CKE for more information because you may be able to offer ad space in other channels as well. It will also offer Adult Swim-themed combo meals from September 22nd to November 7th.  The company believes this partnership will help it reach a younger audience, since Adult Swim has a loyal millennial and Gen-Z following. 

Per Pathmatics, CKE earned 2.5b impressions YTD through Facebook ads (73%), Instagram ads (24%), desktop video ads (2%) and desktop display ads (1%). It placed 100% of these ads site direct onto sites such as facebook.com, instagram.com, twitch.tv, youtube.com and wspa.com. It spent around $22.9m on digital display ads YTD, a 30% increase from $17.6m spent in this channel during the same time period of 2020. Full-year spend skyrocketed from $5.2m in 2019 to $27.4m in 2020. 

Magellan estimates Hardee's placed about 13 podcast ads over the last year. 

iSpot reports Carl's Jr. spent around $17m on national TV ads YTD, a 70% increase from $10m spent in this channel during the same time period of 2020. Full-year spend jumped from $500.1k in 2019 to $21.9m in 2020. This year, it placed ads during programming such as "NHL Hockey," "NBA Basketball," "Family Guy," "SportsCenter" and "Friends." 

According to iSpot, Hardee's spent about $2.1m on national TV ads so far this year during programming such as "NBA Basketball," "Friends," "SportsCenter," "College Basketball" and "Family Guy." It did not allocated any budget towards this channel during the same time period of 2020. Full-year spend equaled $229k in 2019 and $453k in 2020. 

Sellers-- It appears that Hardee's mainly targets Gen-Z and millennial men and Carl's Jr. targets millennial parents. Both brands have been ramping up national TV spend for the last couple of years, and CKE has been increasing digital display spend too. The parent company also invests in OOH, radio and local broadcast TV ads, per Kantar. I see no sign indicating CKE will slow down anytime soon, in fact, I predict it will continue increasing spend. Sellers should reach out soon to offer last-minute campaign ad space. 

Agency & martech readers-- CKE picked up Haygarth US to help with in-store marketing and merchandising in 72andSunny. Those of you with fast-food experience that can also help CKE reach a younger audience may have an advantage.