The Taco John’s fast-food chain snagged Restaurant Business' attention Tuesday with an announcement that it was launching a new “sub-brand,” the code phrase for a delivery-only virtual concept. Today, with virtual brands proliferating faster than dandelions on a spring lawn, that’s dog-bites-man stuff—a yawner of a news development.
But the press materials included renderings of a brick-and-mortar facility bearing signage for an actual restaurant called Chicken John’s, along with assertions that potential franchisees are already expressing interest. That’s a completely different situation, a news occasion of man-bite-dogs distinction. Or so we started to believe.
Turns out it was a ruse, a tongue-in-cheek way for Taco John’s to call attention to a new menu item, a fried-chicken taco, while jabbing competitors for trying to capitalize on the chicken-sandwich craze.
It’s the latest example of a restaurant operation trying to snag attention with a put-on that raises eyebrows as much as it turns heads. The list of stunts is a long one, but here are four that standout as true milestones in prank-based marketing.
A bitcoin concept that isn’t
A pop-up pizza concept tried to draw attention during its limited run last month by borrowing the term “bitcoin” from financial-news headlines and incorporating it into the venture’s name. What could deliver more sizzle than an upstart called Bitcoin Pizza?
The problem, as no less of a pundit as Stephen Colbert observed, was that Bitcoin Pizza didn’t accept bitcoin as a form of payment. The late-night host featured our story on that puzzling situation during a recent airing of his show.
“We don’t have a joke because we couldn’t come up with something stupider than that,” Colbert said of the venture.
Still, a commercial on “The Late Show” doesn’t come cheap, and the short-lived Bitcoin Pizza was getting a mention that it couldn’t buy with a slew of bitcoins.
Pizza Hut changes its name
Back in 2008, when delivery options were virtually limited to pizza and Chinese food, Pizza Hut tried to increase its share of the eat-at-home market by launching a new line of family portioned baked pastas called Tuscani Pastas. David Novak, then-CEO of parent Yum Brands, predicted the new line would eventually generate $1 billion in incremental sales per year. Even by Pizza Hut and Yum standards, that’s a considerable bump.
To tout the addition, Pizza Hut changed one unit’s signage to read Pasta Hut, and used that revamp to announce it was changing its name. The switch came on April 1, prompting speculation that it was just an April Fool’s joke. Pizza Hut kept a straight face while attesting that, no, it really had altered its identity after roughly 50 years to celebrate a change in direction. The assertions were dutifully noted in next-day coverage.
As any prankster would have expected, the name change was extremely temporary. Much to the chain’s regret, so was the buzz about the new pasta line. Although the chain still offers several varieties of Tuscani pasta, the line never became the blockbuster that Novak predicted.
Ronald McDonald grows up
Having the deepest pockets in the industry doesn’t mean you can’t mis-spend, as McDonald’s learned in the mid-1990s when it took a new marketing tack to promote a burger aimed at aging Baby Boomers. That group, the cohort that made McDonald’s the industry behemoth it remains, was starting to outgrow the Golden Arches’ appeal. Then, as now, the brand had a lock on the kids and family market. But older patrons were trading up to casual dining.
To hold onto that greying crowd, the burger giant added a new super-premium sandwich called the Arch Deluxe, a burger positioned as being every bit as good as what consumers would find in a Chili’s or an Applebee’s.
To underscore that the sandwich was conceived for adults rather than Happy Meal fanatics, McDonald’s shot commercials that featured a decidedly more mature Ronald McDonald. He still had red hair, a clown’s makeup and oversized shoes, but he was shown in such adult activities as shooting pool in some nighttime locale, in duds that any Yuppie wouldn’t have hesitated to don. This was one cool character.
Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find a copy of those spots even on YouTube. The marketing shift and the Arch Deluxe joined a list of McMisfires that includes the McDLT and the McLean Deluxe. And don’t even get us started on the Grimace.
Quiznos’ Spongemonkeys
The restaurant industry has had its share of astoundingly bad spokes-figures and mascots, from Herb the Nerd (the everyman-like middle-ager whom Burger King chose as its pitchman in the mid-1980s) to Burger King’s Subservient Chicken (a guy in a chicken suit who danced as you directed him on an internet site) and even the wooden-faced BK King (only therapy can relieve the nightmares he conjured.)
But the hands-down worst had to be the characters Quiznos introduced to deafening ridicule in the middle of this century’s first decade. They were identified as spongemonkeys, leaving any viewer to ask, “What’s a spongemonkey?”
They looked like mutated potatoes, if not misshapen rats, and they sang in bizarre voices that sounded as if a mariachi band had been inhaling helium. They sang a tribute to the moon.
Best we can figure, Quiznos was trying to implant the idea in consumers’ noggins that the brand was a good dinner choice. The moon? Nighttime? Singing sponges? What else could the message be?
Instead, it became the benchmark against which all other ad misfires have been measured. And it still stands out, some 17 years later.