​Halloween is one of the most loved holidays for Jack in the Box’s target audience, who we call The Unruly Ones. These are people who over index for, among other things, ‘needing constant stimulation’ (155i**) and ‘enjoy a movie night with friends’ (155i**).

To grab their attention and promote a new, limited time product, Angry Monster Tacos, we needed to create content that would transcend the standard seasonal noise and get them to build buzz around the brand for us.

The brief: own Halloween in the quick-service-restaurant (QSR) space while trumpeting Jack’s new, limited-time-only Angry Monster Tacos, bringing heightened brand awareness and sales.

Our idea was to serve people not an ad with horror references, but an engaging horror short that seamlessly integrated a Jack in the Box product. We wanted people to forget they were watching marketing.

To accomplish this, we reached out to experts: striking horror TV and film writers with credits like “American Horror Story” and the “Saw” films. We organized a Hollywood-style “writers room” with 4 writers, where they pitched ideas and we collaboratively honed the winning narrative over a series of weeks. We then went even further by tapping the idle Hollywood production community to help us bring our story to life, giving work to even more casualties of the strike.

The resulting film, “Feeding Time,” features a possessed taco truck that targets a threesome of teenage bullies in the suburbs. The narrative universe of the film extended to 2 traditional TV spots and an IRL activation.

In order to break through to media during a cluttered time, Jack in the Box identified an opportunity to tap into the cultural zeitgeist that would resonate with media and consumers. The brand leveraged “Feeding Time” to create two PR storytelling opportunities: First, hiring of out-of-work horror screenwriters during a historic writers strike to create a short film that felt on-brand and authentically Hollywood; second, to expand that story and creatively showcase Jack in the Box’s menu.

The one-of-a-kind creation and narrative secured Jack in the Box an exclusive announcement story in Ad Age, setting the stage to introduce the splashy film to the public. Outreach to entertainment, food and lifestyle press created visibility, while support was shown IRL as team members passed out Jack in the Box tacos on WGA picket lines. Each element of the PR strategy highlighted the unique story and creative assets behind “Feeding Time.”

Our nightmarish seven-and-a-half minute horror short, “Feeding Time,” debuted in front of a crowd of hollywood reporters and genre influencers at LA’s historic No Vacancy speakeasy, giving Hollywood its first cinematic premiere in months. Immediately following, on Friday the 13th (of course), the film debuted on the horror site Bloody Disgusting, as well as across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. After the initial digital push, the full length film made its way to the big screen running in LA and San Diego theaters, capturing the attention not just of Halloween movie goers, but of those flocking to theaters to catch The Era’s Tour, which debuted in theaters at this time.

The narrative universe of our horror short extended to 2 traditional TV spots and an IRL activation that allowed people to book the star of the film – a monstrous taco truck – for their own Halloween parties.

8.5 million Monster Tacos were sold during the campaign. Angry Monster Tacos made up nearly half that, with a 21.4% repurchase rate, higher than any past Monster Taco LTO.

“Feeding Time” generated 2.05 billion views and 4.2 million likes, comments, shares. The film garnered press from outlets like USA Today, Ad Age, Newsbreak and more. The campaign amassed well over 1B press impressions, covering a range of angles, including the IRL event that allowed people to book the truck on Resy.

Performance benchmarks were quickly surpassed, with the Feeding Time trailer achieving a 98% video completion rate and 0.72% CTR (+40% vs. benchmark) across horror site Bloody Disgusting as well as a 94% video completion rate on YouTube. Initial response was so successful that the film was greenlit to run across 62 movie screens in LA and San Diego, amassing an additional 7.5MM impressions.