Carl's Junior Brand Chief Dives Into the New Normal

CKE Restaurants, in case you didn't know, is the parent company of Carl's Junior and Hardee's, with over 3800 restaurants in 44 states. Crawford was the first guest on A+E Networks' new Virtual Insights series, in which A+E's performance ad sales team hosts a monthly Zoom conversation with an ad world luminary.

Crawford is the perfect choice to kick off the series. The restaurant industry was thrown into turmoil by COVID-19, as cities around America went into lockdown—and even with parts of the country opening up, seated dining is still down around 60 percent from last year across America. That's a whole lot of communities who are having to deal with the twin blows of un- or underemployment for restaurant workers and a dearth of communal eating options.

Crawford is one of the many big brains trying to figure out how to get to what everyone is referring to as "the new normal." What "the new normal" means is still very much up for debate, and when the stakes are as high as they are with a novel disease with no vaccine or treatment, that means some serious thought. Crawford and his team are laser-focused on the safety of both guests and the people serving those guests as America has begun to reopen for business, but that reopening has been quite piecemeal, with lots of different local regulations.

And yet CKE is well-positioned to handle this piecemeal opening, Crawford said. Not only are Carl's Junior and Hardee's regional brands, with Carl's Junior being primarily a Western U.S. phenomenon and Hardee's having the Eastern half of America, but the franchises are locally owned and can thus adapt more easily to local regulations. "We're fortunate to have fantastic partners that are willing to learn, adapt, be transparent in communication, and I think that's been the key fundamentals of how we've adapted and gone to market recently," Crawford added.

Safety regulations are one piece of this new normal. Another is messaging—how one markets in the middle of a pandemic is quite tricky. The Carl's Junior and Hardee's brands are both bold, a little on the wild side, and Crawford is finding the balance between celebrating that boldness while leaning into consumers' current desire for comfort and familiarity. And having two brands under a national footprint means finding what Crawford said is the "shared nucleus" between the brands.

"When we think about how we go to market, there are amazing shared elements of both," he added. "One-hundred percent black angus, charbroiled burgers." But Crawford noted that he also wants to be sure to celebrate the brands' differences.

The three messaging elements crucial to Crawford's approach are:

• A strong brand.
• A strong, supportive franchise base willing to try new things.
• The voice of the guest.

"What is the guest looking for?" Crawford asked. "What personal challenges are they facing?" Are they looking for escape? A—forgive the pun—taste of normalcy? A moment of interaction with a person that isn't in their household?

Consumers, stressed to the gills, were driving up meditation app downloads. That inspired Crawford's team to create a spot called Happy's Meaty Meditations, which plays as a guided meditation that describes a Carl's Junior bacon cheeseburger in delicious detail.

Once you've gotten your messaging in tip-top shape, though, the question becomes: What is the best way to disseminate that message?

For Crawford, nothing beats TV. Recent advances in TV are bringing it ever closer to that much-desired one-on-one targeting. "The definition of TV has changed," Crawford said. Connected TV and Smart TVs are enabling precision targeting. TV viewing spiked during lockdown periods across the country, and in order to connect with customers who desire familiarity and comfort but may be experiencing economic hardship, Crawford said CKE has focused on staples like the Western Bacon Cheeseburger and Famous Star Burger, pitching them with a "buy one, get one for a dollar" offer.

"The good news is we have the breadth and scale to do really great things and focus on broad issues. But we have a franchise and restaurant base that allows us to be nimble," Crawford said. "We continue to embrace the mindset that our franchises are owned individually by members of the communities they serve."

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