Jack in the Box Teams up with Hollywood Writers to Present a Monster Mash Short for Halloween

Jack in the Box is cooking up a seriously spooky Halloween campaign featuring the brand’s first-ever horror short, 'Feeding Time', which will be unveiled on Friday, October 13. 

The campaign marks the return of Jack’s infamous Monster Tacos and the launch of their all-new product: Angry Monster Tacos. 

Written by Hollywood horror writers responsible for chills & thrills like, 'Servant', 'Saw' and 'American Horror Story: 1984', 'Feeding Time' is an ode to all things that make Halloween the holiday for the unruly ones: spooky scares, creepy costumes and ghoulish fun. 

Perfectly aligned with the unruly nature of Jack Box himself, the brand’s 2023 Halloween campaign inspiration stems from the question: How can we deliver something fans want at this time of year but wouldn’t quite expect from Jack in the Box, yet still feels authentic? 

Jack in the Box has an unruly streak, and the best horror films often contain a kernel of wry humour, so the brand and the genre were the perfect monster mash. “This is different – and a first – in that it is downright unnerving, genre-inspired content from a brand that’s tonal wheelhouse has always been humour,” said TBWA\Chiat\Day LA creative director, Jeff O’Keefe. 

From a strategic POV, when it comes to Halloween, Jack in the Box is about embracing unruliness and pushing limits, so a campaign that disrupted PG Halloween convention was needed. 

The campaign features CEO Jack Box in various capacities. He’s a spokes-CEO in the TV ads, made nervous in one by the downright scary Halloween environment he finds himself in while pitching his tacos, and playing with horror movie-trailer tropes in another. In the horror short, Jack makes a brief, exciting cameo in which he comes face to face with death and shows off his common sense and quick wit. The campaign also includes Halloween, monster-themed social standard work and an activation that springs out of the fictional universe of the horror short.

The horror short, 'Feeding Time', was written by Hollywood-pedigreed horror writers Marcus Dunstan, Asha Michelle Wilson, Patrick Melton and Kara Lee Corthron, respectively known for their work on projects like 'American Horror Story: 1984', 'Servant' and the 'Saw' film franchise. Marcus Dunstan also directed the horror short. 

Directly impacted by the WGA Writers Strike, these writers were a part of the creative/script development, giving them an outlet to continue their creative output. Additionally, creative agency TBWA\Chiat\Day LA identified opportunities to take a line-producing approach instead of a traditional production house approach for the campaign, allowing them to collaborate with crew who had also been indirectly impacted by the strike.

The full 360 campaign created in collaboration with TBWA\Chiat\Day LA includes a :30 Monster Taco Live Action spot (Hulu/Huluween), two :15 Monster Taco spots and :15 & :06 food spots for all LTO products, and of course, the eight-minute horror short. 

The 30-second spots will run exclusively on Hulu/Huluween and the 15-second spots will run on Linear/Sports TV, Premium Streaming, and Digital Video Partners such as Hulu, YouTube, Paramount, Paramount and Twitch.

The horror short will run on Jack in the Box’s YouTube channel and other social channels.  

The brand has also buried a code in the horror short for fans to find, as a way to encourage use of the Jack in the Box app. The first 1,000 members of the Jack Pack to find the hidden code in “Feeding Time” get two free Monster Tacos or Angry Monster Tacos with purchase, only on the Jack app.

'Feeding Time' continues beyond the horror short as the brand introduces the Angry Monster Truck to the public IRL. Catch it roaming the streets of LA on Saturday October 21st. 

Fans will also have the opportunity to book the truck for their own Halloween Party - reservations go live via Resy on October 24th. The Angry Monster Taco truck at your Halloween party = winning Halloween. 

Jeff O’Keefe, creative director, TBWA\Chiat\Day LA, says: "The name of the new Halloween LTO product we’re spotlighting with this campaign is Angry Monster Tacos. The name was a gift, providing a natural jumping off point to explore a monstrous presence in our advertising and to have some fun with the bulletproof, time-honored cachet of monsters in popular culture and entertainment. It’s also different in the QSR industry, and in marketing space in general, in that Jack in the Box has here resisted the much more common route of leveraging Halloween for a few simple visual cues and gags in order to seem timely. Instead, we’ve taken inspiration from culture, and sought to offer up an authentic piece of culture ourselves, respecting fans’ intelligence and catering to their desires while also seamlessly including our product."