Carl’s Jr. Is Begging Amazon To Bring It Into The Family – But Is The Chain Serious? Image courtesy of Carl’s Jr.
Now that Whole Foods has been folded into the grasping embrace of e-commerce giant Amazon, others in the food business appear to be angling for an invitation to become part of the family: Carl’s Jr. has been busy Tweeting up a storm in an effort to convince Amazon to buy it.
In a day-long series of Tweets — including 24 “Big Ideas” for the future — Carl’s Jr. started its campaign yesterday morning with a simple post about a drone for the office that had arrived via Amazon:
The account goes on to marvel at the speed of the delivery, and praise the company’s “smiling” boxes. From there, Carl’s Jr. makes the leap to the fact that it sells food in boxes, and a dream was apparently born.
The way Carl’s Jr. sees it, two-day shipping meets double cheeseburgers is something people will love. The brand claims this is not a joke:
In fact, the fast food chain had 24 ideas to pitch yesterday in its purported quest, complete with its own #AmazonBuyUs hashtag. A sampling:
Digital assistants that have biscuit-alarms:
A Tender Button:
A self-driving Carl’s Jr. restaurant:
New TV content for Amazon:
Sniffable tape:
The sibling of Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s, chimed in as well, though it let the other chain do most of the work:
As for whether or not this is actually a serious overture, company executives say this is about “generating a conversation around a partnership.”
“The tweets are obviously a start to try and see where the dialogue goes …have a lot of fun with it, and see if they find the spirit of it as fun as we do,” Jeff Jenkins, Chief Marketing Officer, Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s told USA Today (warning: link contains autoplay video).
Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s are owned by CKE Restaurants, a privately held company that is itself controlled by a private equity firm, Roark Capital Group. We’ve reached out to reps for both CKE and Roark to inquire about whether this is a serious overture and will update if we receive a response.
Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.
