How do you advertise enormous hamburgers and buckets of fried chicken when that’s just going to remind people they’re not supposed to eat enormous hamburgers and buckets of fried chicken?
You get a funny mascot to do it for you.
It’s a hard world for a fast-food chain. Meals once considered quick, convenient and delicious are now salted with guilt.
Americans have started to eat less fast food than they used to, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. McDonald’s has seen a 4 percent drop in same-store sales in the U.S. this year. Last year, Chick-fil-A surpassed KFC in sales, even though it has fewer stores and is closed Sundays.
“It’s not just about the cheapest price anymore,” said Bonnie Riggs, a restaurant industry analyst at research firm NPD Group. “People need another reason to visit a fast-food restaurant.”
In May, McDonald’s, Burger King and KFC resurrected characters they hadn’t used in years.
McDonald’s pulled its Hamburglar character out of a 13-year retirement and remade him into a bearded hipster in a trench coat who prefers to steal the new Sirloin Burger.
He’s part of McDonald’s campaign to be seen as “a modern, progressive burger company,” as CEO Steve Easterbrook put it in a May conference call with investors.
About two weeks later, Burger King released a fresh batch of commercials featuring its plastic-faced King, who hadn’t been used since 2011.
“There seems to be a real resurgence of icons and mascots in the fast-food industry right now,” said Derek Rucker, professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
It’s an easy way for companies to gin up publicity. But it’s also a way to “get people to reconnect with them,” Rucker said.
KFC, which is owned by Yum! Brands, completes the trifecta with its brand-new version of Colonel Sanders, played by “Saturday Night Live” alum Darrell Hammond.
KFC hadn’t used his likeness in ads since 1994.
All three ad campaigns appear to be mainly going after the 18- to 34-year-old male who is urban and educated and would, much like the new Hamburglar, rather eat a gourmet burger.
“What you’re seeing is companies who’re facing different kinds of competition,” said Kevin Keller, professor of marketing at Dartmouth University’s Tuck School of Business.
“There’s the healthiness trend, of course,” as in Wendy’s current campaign, in which its redheaded namesake talks about how fresh the strawberries in her summer salad are. “But, separate from that, there’s also the preference for slowly cooked, higher-quality food,” he said.
