Excellence in Advertising: Jack in the Box

Before God invented Netflix and PVRs, you had to sit through a battery of commercials every time you turned on the idiot box. Most of them made you wonder why the hell Philo Taylor Farnsworth didn’t also invent something to block out commercials. Like Netflix or PVRs. 

But occasionally, a television ad struck gold to where you’d sit through a seven-hour Cannon marathon to see it again. And now, thanks to the magic of YouTube (which we can thank God for inventing) you can relive the magic at the touch of a mouse. Here’s today’s nomination for Excellence in Advertising.

Blame Ronald McDonald, who first capered across the TV screen back in 1962. For years fast food corporations leaned heavily on the idea that the last person that should be selling hamburgers, tacos, and fried chicken was some clown in a suit. And, by clown, we’re not talking an actual clown, but instead a fellow who looks like he just strutted out of Donald Trump’s boardroom.

The usual thinking was that the face of an advertising campaigns had to be a friendly one.

Who cares if Burger King's plastic-faced king from 2008 looked even creepier than the cowboys from Primus's “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver” video—what was important was that, upon being woken up from his slumber by a construction worker, he served up a French toast sandwich.

Gidget the Chihuahua was adorable enough that millions of North Americans ended up rethinking their attitudes towards both the food of Taco Bell, and, more importantly, talking dogs with Mexican accents. On the senior-citizen front, was there anything cuter than that evidently insatiable octogenarian shouting “Where’s the beef?” for Wendy’s ads in the ’80s?

All this makes Jack in the Box’s approach to advertising endlessly fascinating.

The San Diego–headquartered company has long been on the cutting edge. If you’re one of those people who’d rather eat your own weight in lard than get out of your car at a fast food restaurant, then you can thank Jack in the Box founder Robert Oscar Peterson for popularizing the idea of a drive-thru window.

When cars pulled up at the first Jack in the Box on El Cajon Boulevard in San Diego, they saw a speaker with a clown head, and a sign reading “Pull forward, Jack will speak to you!”

Later on, the company decided to literally blow up its jack-in-the-boxes in a series of ads, part of rebranding campaign for a menu that featured more upscale fare. Or, as upscale as fast food can be.

But nothing was better than the Jack in the Box ads in the mid ’90s featuring Jack, a mascot with a serious attitude problem. Jack—basically a smiling ping-pong ball in a neatly tailored suit—did things like arrive at the homes of those who disparaged his food.

And then all hell would break loose. Why politely ask a fellow if he’s tried a Jack in the Box hamburger when you can chase him through the house Cops style, and then take him down with a football tackle in the back yard? And too bad about the trash can.

The message? That you didn’t dare call Jack in the Box’s food “junk in the box” unless you wanted a beatdown. The added indignity being that beatdown came at the hands of a corporate clown wearing a suit. A real clown, that is, not some fellow who looks like he just strutted out of Donald Trump’s boardroom.