Is America Ready for a Bacon Milkshake?
By: Americans love their bacon.
Jack in the Box is banking on that.
The fast food chain is going whole hog in a "Marry Bacon" campaign, launched during last Sunday's Super Bowl.
The ad campaign aims to promote the chain's BLT Cheeseburger, but if you go on a new website the company has set up, MarryBacon.com, you'll find an extra treat not seen in the commercial—the Bacon Milkshake.
You read that right.
A bacon. Milkshake.
Jack in the Box tells us the shakes are generating a lot of “buzz”, but only a limited number of them are being sold. You have to specifically ask for them, they’re not on the menu. The manager at the store I went to raised her eyebrows when I walked in and ordered...eight. "Are they good?" I asked. "Not my thing," she replied after a pause. She did tell me they are selling quite a lot of them. By the way, Jack in the Box doesn’t really use bacon in the shakes, but a special syrup. I checked the nutritional value, and a 16-oz. version weighs in at 773 calories and 40 grams of fat.
So, by ordering eight of them, I was carrying 6,000+ calories and 320 grams of fat as I walked into the Westfield Topanga mall to subject the public to a taste test.
Would the bacon milkshake be the worst food idea ever, worse than the McDLT ("the hot stays hot and the cool stays cool!")?
Or maybe, just maybe, has Jack found a secret hit?
Watch the reaction on tape.
Clearly the public is divided. When it comes to bacon shakes, there is no middle ground.
For me, however, well…
I love bacon, and I love milkshakes. However, I'm not sure they should breed. You end up with the mule of the fast food world.
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