Ladies and gentlemen, The Big Carl. 1,400+ calories and $0.50 less than a wimpy, 700 calorie Big Mac.
McDonald’s is McHuge. McGlobal. McMonolithic. So if it’s your job to try to nibble away little chunks of business from Micky D’s, (like, for instance, if you’re the marketing team for Carl’s Jr.), you don’t wake up every morning looking for new ways to play fair.
And, to be fair, they haven’t. Carl’s has probably done the best job of any marketer lately at scoring tons of free eyeball time and brain space by deliberately cultivating outrage through the overt sexualization of sandwiches. It doesn’t matter what I think of their efforts. All that matters is what what burger-loving males between the ages of, say, 14 and 24 with three bucks in their pocket think of them.
OK. I'll admit that I didn't even know who Audrina Patridge is until I read that a bunch of people were complaining in blogs about this Carl's Jr. "Bikini Burger" viral video. Well, say what you will about Audrina's gold lame swimsuit. Carl's closeup food footage blows the pickles off most of what you see on the air these days. That is a tasty-looking burger.
So, I’m not even going to comment on “Soapy Paris Hilton on a Bentley” or “I Like Flat Buns” (by the way, Carl’s used Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” years before Burger King forced mommies to cover the eyes of their Sponge Bob loving kiddos), because their latest street fightin’ tactic is something that just about everybody in marketing has always dreamed of doing (come on, admit it) but never got to because it was “too risky”, “too hard”, or “we’ll get letters.” And, whatever you think of Audrina Partridge and her “Bikini Burger”, the Carl’s team deserves some serious props for this one.
According to today’s Wall Street Journal, Carl’s has taken to parking a flashy, heavily branded mobile kitchen in front of select McDonald’s restaurants, waylaying customers as they’re walking out and offering to swap Big Macs (Beef content = 3.2oz) for Big Carls (Beef content = 7oz).
And, since Carl’s has learned to use YouTube the way Procter & Gamble uses “One Life To Live”, we can expect to see some juicy footage emerge from this. If they’re really lucky, maybe they’ll catch a McDonald’s manager going all Christian Bale on some innocent kid in a paper hat in the Carl’s Mobile Diner. Good for you, Carl’s team. Fight on. If you had restaurants in Massachusetts, I’d go scarf a couple of Big Angus Burgers (I think those are Paris’ faves) just to say thank you for reminding us all not to be such big, cluckin’ chickens.
