Hungry Jack’s slogan change highlights branding challenge

Small businesses that introduce a new tagline must ensure it reflects larger changes within the brand, experts say, after fast-food franchise Hungry Jacks ditched its 16-year old slogan.

Hungry Jack’s, which is part of food retailing business Competitive Foods, has abandoned its well-known slogan: “The burgers are better at Hungry Jack’s”.

The chain’s new slogan, which will be used in all advertising and marketing material as of this week, is “Hungry Jack’s makes it better”.

According to Jim Wilson, Hungry Jack’s national marketing director, the original slogan was scrapped after becoming a “limitation”.

“The Hungry Jack’s experience is now better than ever and it’s much more than just a destination for delicious beef burgers,” Wilson said.

“We haven’t completely let go of the past. We’ve retained one element from our former tagline and built it into the new one to reflect Hungry Jack’s today and tomorrow.”

Wilson said the new tagline mirrors the move towards healthy eating that is occurring within the brand.

“We are adding new innovations to our menu, we’re improving the quality and nutritional content of our food, and the in-store customer experience is now vastly different,” he said.

Andy Pontin, chief executive of advertising agency Clemenger BBDO, told B&T that changing the logo was essential to evolving the brand and appealing to a broader customer base.

According to Erminio Putignano, managing director of FutureBrand Australia, small businesses can learn from Hungry Jack’s, particularly with regard to the importance placed on taglines.

“Don’t get too hung up on the tagline. It’s not going to solve most of your problems when it comes to building your brand,” Putignano says.

“It carries meaning only if it’s part of a bigger branding experience… Even with a company with a budget the size of Hungry Jack’s, they don’t just change the tagline [for no reason].”

“Changing the tagline for the sake of it won’t get you very far. It has to be part of a bigger change around the brand – the experience, the products and all of that.”

Putignano says only then does the tagline acquire real meaning because it “becomes a sort of amplifier for people to understand what else is changing [within the brand]”.

Putignano provides three key points for small businesses:

• Taglines are no longer as important as they used to be.
• Taglines can’t be addressed in isolation. They must be part of a bigger consideration of your branding experience.
• If you do get your branding experience right, a good tagline can definitely help.