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Jack (full name: Jack Box) is the mascot of American restaurant chain Jack In The Box. In the advertisements, he is the founder, CEO, and ad spokesman for the chain. According to the company's web site, he has the appearance of a typical male, with the exception of his huge round white head, blue dot eyes, black pointy nose, and a linear red smile. He is almost always seen wearing his yellow clown cap, and a business suit.
The company's "bio" of him claims the following facts:
- According to his California driver's license, Jack I. Box is 6'-8" tall and weighs 195 pounds. It also shows his birthday to be May 16.
- Jack was born on a cattle ranch in Colorado. He later moved to Southern California, where he met his blonde wife, Cricket. They now have a young son named Jack Jr. (who, like all males in the Box family tree, also has an oversized bald head).
- Jack, fluent in English and Spanish, has starred in more than 300 television and radio commercials, including more than 100 Spanish-language ads. Jack's linguistic talents also include Mandarin, which he spoke in the 1999 television ad "Titans."
- A true man of the people, Jack ran for president in 1996 and beat out Bill Clinton, Bob Dole and Dogbert in a national independent Virtual Vote poll; no recounts required.
- During Super Bowl XXXV, Jack in the Box debuted a television commercial in which Jack announced his purchase of a professional American football team, the Carnivores. His team played against teams such as the Tofu Eaters and the Vegans.
- In late 2009, the company began to run a commercial in which Jack visited his cousin Jim, who was serving time in prison. Jim has a large white head that resembles a Ping-Pong ball squashed from both sides, with wispy gray hair and beard, along with a surly voice and facial expression. He does not wear a clown cap.
- Jack's smile can change to reflect his mood (puzzlement, fear, etc.). During one commercial, in which he was playing Texas hold 'em against several celebrities, he made his eyes and mouth disappear completely. The announcer remarked, "Now that's a world-class poker face."
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History
Prior to 1980, the chain used a huge clown head as its symbol, which sat atop the remote activated talking drive-thru menus (in the 1960s and early '70's the rotating clown head was also at the top of the large signs at each location). In 1980, the chain decided to establish a more "mature" image by introducing a wider variety of menu items and, most notably, discontinuing the use of Jack. A series of television commercials announced "We're blowing up clowns!" and showed the dramatic explosion of the notorious clown heads. These commercials led to many complaints by parents over the violence. Throughout the late 1980s to the 1990s, Jack in the Box tried to position itself as a premium fast food alternative, with varying results.
In 1993, a major food contamination crisis was linked to Jack in the Box restaurants and by 1994, a series of lawsuits and negative publicity took their tolls and pushed their corporate parent, Foodmaker Inc. to the verge of bankruptcy. In the short term, they decided to promote their initiatives on food safety and then approved a new guerilla advertising campaign created by Dick Sittig, of Top Secret Marketing in Santa Monica which brought back their original mascot, Jack as a savvy, no-nonsense businessman.
A series of new commercials featured a new, more-serious Jack with a smaller head and wearing a business suit (according to him, "thanks to the miracle of plastic surgery"). In the very first of these new commercials, he blew up the board of directors as retribution for his supposed destruction in 1980. This image of destruction angered many, as it occurred at nearly the same time as several domestic bombings hitting the news in those days (see Oklahoma City bombing). But the ad agency and the corporation stuck by the new campaign. Their intent was to prove to a wary public that the company was no longer the same restaurant chain plagued by the food safety scandal, and because the commercials had a definite humorous element to them that undermined the alleged "retribution" that Jack was supposedly demonstrating in these commercials and overall, the public responded positively.
Car antenna ornaments shaped like Jack's head have been a mainstay of the restaurant chain's promotion for several years.
Dick Sittig, a marketing executive who started the Jack advertising campaign, is the voice of Jack. The man inside the suit is Jason Curtis from Phoenix, AZ.[1]
On February 1, 2009, a new ad campaign began with a Super Bowl ad that showed Jack being struck by a bus outside his corporate office. The ad ends with Jack lying on the ground badly injured while the paramedics are being summoned. Viewers were then directed to visit the website hangintherejack.com to check on his condition.[2] The next ad showed Jack being checked into the hospital and being operated on as his heart stopped. The third ad showed Jack in a coma, and an employee of Jack in the Box volunteering to take his place at the company's head (despite Jack not being dead). The fourth ad showed the employee, Phil, taking Jack's place and declaring his intention to rename the restaurant "Phil in The Box," but Jack woke up and started to choke Phil. What Jack said was, "Phil in the Box?!! I don't think so!! Somebody get my pants, I've got work to do!" The words "Jack's back" were then shown on-screen.
Media
The April 24, 2009 edition of the Adam Carolla [3] Podcast featured Sittig, in character as Jack, involving a humorous discussion on other restaurant mascots (Ronald McDonald, The Burger King), the fast food business and general listener Q&A. In the podcast, Jack insinuates that The Burger King is bisexual, citing his attire ( tights, felt shoes and a cape). Carolla jumps in with a tale of the King buying a drink for a male friend of his in Canada, though this claim cannot be verified.
References
External links
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