Male Opps: CKE Restaurants taps new CMO (Score 73)

Sales Lead: Jennifer Tate is now the CMO at CKE Restaurants, effective September 2023.

• Tate joined from Cracker Barrel, where she served in the same role.
• She succeeds incumbent Tana Davila, who became the CMO at Dutch Bros Coffee in June 2023 after parting ways with CKE.
• The company will likely:
  • Shift its strategy
  • Continue increasing digital spend
  • Conduct additional agency reviews following a recent one (more below)
• Target demographic: 
  • ​​​​​​​Gen-Z and millennial men

Additional spending insights:

• Broadcast insights (TV ad creative spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance); digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • View recent national TV (decreasing) and digital spend (skyrocketing) for CKE's brands, Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, here.  
• Additional channel insights  
  • The company utilizes Google Ads along with radio, digital, local broadcast, OOH, Facebook, Instagram, and online video (via Youtube.com, Youtube IOS, and Youtube.com) ads.

Additional agency insights:

• Opportunity: CMO hires often precede agency reviews, especially when those hires follow agency shifts, so reach out soon to remain top-of-mind.
  • ​​​​​​​We have not yet heard of any additional roster shifts since CKE named as its US media AOR earlier this year.
• Current agency roster:
  • Camelot Strategic Marketing & Media: Media AOR (April 2023)
  • 72andSunny: Creative and digital AOR
  • LaForce: PR AOR

Insight Sources: Broadcast insights estimated by iSpot; digital spend insights estimated by Pathmatics; additional channel insights estimated by Vivvix.