Carls Jr. | International Burger Day
A cheeky, disruptive street activation that redirected competitor customers straight to Carl's Jr.
Client
Carl's Jr.
Concept support, Brand Ambassador staffing, On-the-day execution
Services
Auckland, Hamilton, Hastings, Rotorua
Location
TBWA, Eleven
Partners
THE BRIEF
A bold, disruptive idea, turned around fast.
To mark International Burger Day, Carl's Jr. working with creative agency TBWA and PR agency Eleven, wanted to do something cheeky, disruptive, and very on-brand: send teams of brand ambassadors to stand outside McDonald's and Burger King and hand out free vouchers, redirecting customers away from the competition and straight to Carl's Jr. instead. Select Management was brought in to supply and manage the on-the-ground ambassador teams across four cities, with the concept approved and turned around in under two weeks.
What we did
Bold, camera-ready teams who could own the moment.
Deployed energetic, camera-ready ambassador teams as bold sign-spinners outside competitor locations across four cities, executing a true guerrilla marketing play:
Stationed ambassadors just outside competitor drive-throughs and restaurants in Auckland, Hamilton, Hastings, and Rotorua
Worked as big, bold, impossible-to-ignore sign-spinners to pull in drivers and pedestrians
Distributed free Famous Star Burger vouchers, with enough per car to cover the whole family
Operated with no permits and fast-moving locations, true to guerrilla marketing style
Handled competitor pushback with polite, good-humoured relocations when asked to move on
Managed all behind-the-scenes logistics — uniforms, signage, voucher supply, and live WhatsApp coordination across every team
Kept ambassadors fully focused on staying visible, on-message, and energetic all day
The Outcome
Every location activated, every city on-brand.
Every planned location across all four cities was activated successfully, with ambassadors staying engaging and on-brand from the first stop to the last. The flagship Auckland locations were filmed for Carl's Jr.'s own content, and hundreds of vouchers were put directly into the hands of drivers and pedestrians at exactly the moment they were deciding where to eat — turning a routine competitor visit into a genuine flavour U-turn. The campaign wrapped without incident and was signed off by the client end to end.
Firstly, thank you again for your team's incredible work on the Carl's Jr. International Burger Day activations. Every single one of your team members absolutely smashed it and did a fantastic job on the day - everyone was thrilled with how it all came together.
— Madi, Eleven