He survived what some consider an assassination attempt by that dastardly Phil. But as Jack returns we ask, what can a company accomplish by almost killing off their star?
At San Diego's HQ, crowds gathered for the triumphant return of their leader. Millions of Americans saw the crime - Jack broke his head when he was "hit" buy a bus. Many speculated "That Guy Phil" was at fault, knocking Jack into the path of the oncoming bus but corporate heads wanted to put that rumor to rest Wednesday.
The company gathered its employees to celebrate the end of a successful campaign that started with a Super Bowl ad (viewed 1.6 million times on Yahoo and YouTube) and ended with a "Hang in There Jack" website (visited by 2 million people) and more than 77,000 get well wishes from customers.
Jack re-entered the public life when he walked into a tent of his colleagues, shaking hands and favoring his right leg. His head sporting a large bandaid, Jack blew kisses from the podium and announced "I'm going to buy everyone a new car!" only to then blame the medication for the outburst.
The company proclaimed the ad campaign a success and it's hard to argue with that assessment. The website crashed for a few minutes after the Super Bowl Ad aired because of the crush of fans trying to find out what had happened. Thousands of customers signed up for Jack's health updates sent to their email. The campaign caught attention. Did it reinforce the notion that the Jack-in-the-Box menu is available all hours of the day? Who cares? It was fun while it lasted. Now, if we could just take out Ronald McDonald....
