Five Questions for Brad Haley, EVP Marketing, Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s

Today marks the first post in our new "Five Questions" series. In this regularly occurring YouTube Biz Blog feature, we'll interview marketing executives, agency leaders, and other innovators who are using YouTube in interesting ways to drive their businesses forward.

For our first interview, we chatted with Brad Haley, EVP Marketing for Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, who just launched two new YouTube brand channels as part of a campaign that enlisted some of the most popular users on YouTube to make videos about the restaurant's new Portobello Mushroom Six Dollar Burger.

1. Why did you decide to advertise on YouTube?

At Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, our advertising is targeted to 18-34 year old males. We call them “young, hungry guys.” And they are definitely on YouTube.

2. Tell us about this campaign.

This campaign has two goals - the first is to promote the introduction of Carl’s Jr. Portobello Mushroom Six Dollar Burger. What better way to promote a new product than to have some of the hottest YouTube content creators show their millions of subscribers how they would eat the burger? The second goal is to gain traction with our new brand channels for both Carl’s Jr. (www.youtube.com/CarlsJr) and Hardee’s (www.youtube.com/Hardees). We launched them on the same day as the videos from the content creators to help drive traffic, subscribers and interaction with the brands.

3. Why do you think Carl's Jr.'s message is well suited for YouTube user videos?

Our brand message is fun, irreverent and always includes our big delicious burgers. We want fans of our brand to know that our relationship with them doesn’t end at the drive thru, and YouTube provides a great way to share the same kind of fun, edgy content with our fans online.

4. How has your thinking toward "video advertising" evolved?

Online video [advertising] is a completely different ballgame [from TV advertising] and this deal proves that. Broadcast TV advertising isn’t going anywhere immediately. It’s still very effective, despite DVRs. But online, and especially with YouTube, we are able to target our young male customers for a fraction of the cost.

5. What's your favorite YouTube video?

I liked the animated Watchmen video spoofs. And I still laugh out loud every time I see Happy Star save Rob Dyrdek’s life.

Posted by Jesse Haines, Marketing Manager