What do you do if you’re a fast food company that needs an All-Day Breakfast-style Hail Mary to bring customers back through the door, but you already offer all-day breakfast?
You rebrand that all-day breakfast. Complete with a newly-minted, trademarked word: brunchfast. If All-Day Breakfast was the business strategy McDonald’s needed to pull itself out of the slump it was going through, it was the exact opposite for Jack in the Box. The company’s been offering all-day breakfast for 25 years — it even bills itself as being the first in the industry to offer a breakfast sandwich, back in 1969 — but the introduction of “a competitor’s messaging around its launch of all-day breakfast” definitely left the company hurting.
So what did they do? They put their (white, cueball-shaped) heads together, gave their mascot a wife and a soon-to-be-born child, and launched brunchfast. Which…is somehow different than breakfast?
Actually, Jack in the Box’s brunchfast (yes, they actually filed a trademark for that word back in May) really is a bit different than its regular ol’ breakfast. The menu is expanded, with heartier options that can easily stand in for lunch — think the Bacon & Egg Chicken Sandwich (served on an English muffin bun, prolly just to troll McD’s), or the Brunch Burger, which is a patty topped with an egg, cheese, and bacon, and served on a croissant. Also on offer: cranberry-orange muffins, a Southwest Scrambler Plate with bacon, eggs, and homestyle potatoes, a Blood Orange Fruit Cooler, and iced coffee.
“It’s the continuous pushing of the envelope,” said Iwona Alter, Jack’s vice president of product marketing and innovation.
It’s still way too early to tell whether brunchfast will be enough to pull Jack in the Box back from its breakfast slump, but in the California test markets, the new products were a big hit with customers — especially the Bacon & Egg Chicken Sandwich (which actually looks pretty legit IRL).
“The chicken sandwich sings,” Alter said. “I think it will be a big hit.”
Check out the new commercial for brunchfast below. If you’re intrigued, look for the items at a Jack in the Box near you. According to Alter, stores will be rolling out the menu in the coming months.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BKUFSrFh3JZ/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BH7xrhED7wY/
