Hungry Jack’s ditches ‘the burgers are better’ slogan
Hungry Jack’s is scrapping its ‘the burgers are better…’ slogan after 16 years to reflect the fast food chain’s addition of healthier options to its menu.
The new slogan will be: “Hungry Jack’s makes it better”, which will be used in all communications from this week.
The brand rethink follows the introduction of vegetables as a side-dish on its menu last month.
The chain’s national marketing director, Jim Wilson, said ‘the burgers are better’ tagline had become a limitation for the brand, although the new line would “leverage equity from the term ‘better’”.
“We haven’t completely let go of the past. We’ve retained one element from our former tagline and built it into our new one to reflect Hungry Jack’s today and tomorrow,” he said.
“It mirrors the comprehensive changes happening across every facet of our operation – from the new cup of fresh vegies we call Salad Stix, to the industry’s first burger made with organic beef and the installation of Australia’s first national menu boards displaying kilojoule counts.”
According to the company, the sugar levels in its buns have been cut by 60 per cent, the sodium level in chicken nuggets reduced by a third, and the saturated fat levels of fries cut by 76 per cent due to a move to a canola-based oil blend.
Like the ad, dislike the new tagline. “The Burgers are better at Hungry Jacks” is a promise they can keep and it still works with the new “healthier” direction. “Better” for you, “Better” ingredients etc… Stick to what you’re good at, burgers. I’m not going to go to Hungry Jacks for a salad.
User ID not verified.
Where’s the broccoli farm?
Oh I know – just like you can’t show a real cow in an add about eating beef…you couldn’t make a tin broccoli florette in time…I mean you don’t want to upset the Rabbits either with real live broccoli.
User ID not verified.
and disguised him as a good old Aussie Faaaaaaaaaaarrrrrmer – nice and trustworthly yeah.
They couldn’t catch the chickens so – aw dang – you advertising tricksters, you make a cow out of a barrel and pulled poor old Aussie Faaaaaaaaaarmer’s leg haw haw haw
Well if that farmer doesn’t have a wife – he’s got a new friend. Moo.
In short – IT’S BEEN DONE – no soup for you.
NEXT!
User ID not verified.
Nice production but it’s nothing new.
Don’t show real cows – check!
Fair dinkum Aussie Farmer – check!
Get rid of the tagline another agency came up with just cause – check!
Wonder how much Jack paid for all those hectares.
User ID not verified.
Your slogan “Burgers are better at Hungry Jacks” should remain, as now due to the better quality of beef used that slogan means alot more..
User ID not verified.
“I wouldn’t go to HJ’s for a salad” is a lame line. It doesn’t matter that you wouldn’t. The important thing is that if you go with the entire family, mum (when she’s on one of her diets) can have a salad (or at least go with the intention of going for a salad). and take the rest of the family along for their burgers. No salad, no burgers sold for the rest of them.
I call it my cocktail stick argument – when I was 14 I worked in a medium sized supermarket. The manager removed cocktail sticks as (obviously) they weren’t very profitable for the shelf space. The trouble was that I’d get about 5-10 people a day asking me where they were. When they were told they couldn’t find them, what did they do? Well, firstly they were rather inconvenienced (lots of cheese and pineapple on sticks at parties back then!) next time they went shopping they went to the big out-of-town supermarket.
Lots of your products might not matter to most people, some might not be profitable, but you don’t need to annoy many people for lots more to stay away. Not to mention the halo effect etc on the rest of the company. It’s certainly been working for McDonalds, I’m sure exactly the same arguments were trotted out against them when they did this!
User ID not verified.
Well, another stupid decision by a wanker marketing director who wanted to “make his mark”.
The burgers ARE better at Hungry Jacks. That’s what brings loyal customers to the joint so you see, there is no need for this sort of crappy ad, no one believes it’s true anyway.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Oh and I do hope you enjoyed you cash cow week up north. Wouldn’t be shoot during the colder Sydney months right?
Pfft. Bored.
User ID not verified.
The differentiator is the burger, nothing else. If you win on burgers you win. To throw away the line ‘the burgers are better’ indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the market and the brand. Find a strategist who understands both Jack before it is too late.
User ID not verified.
maccas have been doing this type of advertising for 3-4 years..profiling aussie farmers, where the beef comes from etc. HJ’s is massive catch up mode…consumers dont go to HJs for healthier burgers..they just dont. BK in USA embraced the fatty US culture and has made millions out of it…HJ here need to understand that that’s where their market is… sad, but true.
User ID not verified.
Why?
User ID not verified.
has anyone seen the cup of vegies – they are a Joke !!
User ID not verified.
In fact Jack find a grown up to be your CEO. This one doesn’t get it.
User ID not verified.
No Dragon – don’t you see, Blue see above has it all worked out. The cocktail stick theory! Not.
Where your theory fails you Blue, is that McDonalds whilst they have the pseudo salad there to entice Mums on diets – it at least looks appetising. I’m a Mum and I’d sooner eat dirt than pay $4.95 for a cup of raw broccoli and carrots.
Where the silly strategists have failed is by not reinforcing what made the burgers better – better tasting, better for you. The grilling. And I know we see it in the spot buried amongst pastures and cow dung where it’s lost, and we now have a farmer with a challenged IQ representing the brand and leaving what their claim to fame was up for grabs.
oooops.
User ID not verified.
but it might increase store traffic temporarily and perhaps comparable sales might be negative 8 next week instead of negative double digits.
oooops
User ID not verified.
I hate it. I thought HJ’s had one of the best taglines in the business.
User ID not verified.
oooh ooooh yeah and it’s not all gloom and doom – all the broccoli they won’t sell they can feed to the Rabbits!
Jeez I’m on fire today…sizzle…grill.
User ID not verified.
Oh dear. Hungry Jacks had it so right. That it is changing an age-old tagline that everyone knows for the sake of a few vegie sticks introduced last month is so sad.
User ID not verified.
I’m always saddened when I see a strong piece of brand equity thrown out because it’s ‘old’ (or talks to the bit of the business that makes up 99.99% of sales).
And, as in this case, it’s often exchanged for a pale, ‘bob each way’, forgetable replacement.
AND the old line would still have worked perfectly with the vege experiment.
User ID not verified.
In an era of masstige and gourmet burgers, when HJ could become the mainstream “better burger” joint, this is almost as dumb as VB walking away from “For a hard earned thirst…”
And like VB, methinks they’ll be singing “don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone…” before too long.
User ID not verified.
Crazy dropping a classic line that still means everything they want the “new direction ” to say
User ID not verified.
I loved the old tag line
The new one is stupid
User ID not verified.
What a load of bull – literally. This add leads the viewer to the assumption that the beef sourced for Hungry Jack’s burgers is free range and lives some carefree roaming existence: but “organic” DOES NOT necessarily mean this!! Ridiculous, false advertising.
User ID not verified.
You don’t make friends with salad, You don’t make friends with salad, You don’t make friends with salad, You don’t make friends with salad; ba da boom boom boom!
User ID not verified.
Does that mean my Classic Whopper or what fancy shmancy name you call it now is full of cattle that are kept in confined spaces feeding non organic genetically modified chinese made chaff?
Oh no.
User ID not verified.
That’s it.
Until you offer me ORGANIC BROCCOLI I’m never darkening your doorsteps again.
Bloody favouritism that’s what it is….
User ID not verified.
Don’t worry about where the bloody cattle have gone (probably for a perky little pinot to wash down all that organic grass) Where the bloody hell are the customers!
User ID not verified.
Such a shame, t’was one of my Faves. This ine has no legs. As we all know no body does it better, LJ Hooker you’re the best
User ID not verified.
The new slogan begs the question of what “it” is that HJ makes better. And the answer may not be what they want.
User ID not verified.
“The chain’s national marketing director, Jim Wilson, said ‘the burgers are better’ tagline had become a limitation for the brand, although the new line would “leverage equity from the term ‘better’”.”
Hmm…
Has the tagline become a limitation for the brand or the chain’s national marketing director become the limitation for the brand?
User ID not verified.
What is happening to fast food advertising in this country.
Why on earth did they throw away a brilliant line that can go anywhere they want and still works to the core business.
The BURGERS ARE BETTER…THE BREKKIES ARE BETTER….THE FRIES ARE BETTER.
Hungry Jacks makes things beter….leave me out. And the ad….what was that….
Great work Clems.
User ID not verified.
Maybe they legally couldn’t say the burgers are better at Hungry Jacks after some research guru’s determined they:
• Weren’t any healthier
• Didn’t taste any better
This campaign’s got legs far more than just saying you’re better. That shit went out in the 80’s.
User ID not verified.
Even though I am not a fan of burges I actually thought the old slogan was good – don’t fix it if it ain’t broken!
User ID not verified.
But the burgers ARE better at hungry jacks!! Prefer Maccas fries though…
User ID not verified.
The burgers are better…. yep; still works for me, and I bet many thousands of others too.
@Bewildered: bad news about the grilling. Look out back next time you order your burger — the meat is “microwaved” before dropping it onto the bun. Maybe the meat was grilled before it was frozen.
About 30 years ago — the meat was flame grilled just before it was put on your burger. I used to cook there. No more.
The burgers are still better!!
— the others — are fried on a hot plate; then laid to rest on a bun which has 40% more sugar than the same bun purchased in a chain store. The other burger maker’s “special” recipe :p
User ID not verified.
All junk food advertising should be banned.
User ID not verified.
Stupidest marketing decision EVER !! Someone’s head should roll for this latest campaign…… The Agency or HJ Marketing Manager?? Probably BOTH! It wasn’t broken, why fix it?
The burgers were better, now they are just plain annoying…. Oh, and ‘Farmer campaign’ done before, years ago by Maccy’s…. So original HJ’s….NOT!
STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!
User ID not verified.
All of the comments on this website are extremely interesting and come from what sounds like a well educated opinion. The mass-market burger customer is however a different beast. One Step in a perceived right direction is probably going to do well for the HJ brand, at least in terms of catching up with the big McD who have pulled an amazing duckling like transformation and are the talk of the malls around the metropolis.
User ID not verified.
We may have well educated opinions. Customer knows best and the numbers will prove it.
Check out hj’s facebook page. Majority of customers aren’t happy Jack.
That’s what you get for throwing out the babies with the bath water.
User ID not verified.
Too cheap to keep up with your competition for years, then over compensate over night. Oh well.
User ID not verified.
BRIGID GLANVILLE: While McDonald’s has changed its menu bringing in salads, Hungry Jack’s is sticking to Whopper’s.
JACL COWIN: What people say they want and what they do is often two different things. I think our philosophy has been that we want to be a specialist, rather than all things to all people, and that’s the niche that we want. We want to produce the best tasting hamburger there is, and that’s our objective.
User ID not verified.
It should be, “The Burgers are Sloppier” at Hungry Jacks.
User ID not verified.
Absolutely stupid. Everyone knows “The Burgers Are Better At Hungry Jacks”. Such a great slogan just thrown away. What a waste.
User ID not verified.