Jack Astor’s, the irreverent restaurant brand known for its rebel spirit, is taking a novel approach to tell the real story behind its real food – a story that’s “long overdue to be told” says Anesie Johnson, Vice President of Marketing at SIR Corp. In a bold move, the 37 location iconic Canadian brand – known best for items like Chicken Fingers, Burgers and Nachos – teamed up with independent Toronto-based agency, The Garden, to smartly turn pain points voiced by their own kitchen staff into concept proof points that showcase the shocking amount of work that goes into its dishes.
“In a world where quality stories can easily blend into the background noise, we wanted to tell the story of Jack Astor’s food in a way that truly stood out – one that felt authentic, real, and completely unique to us,” said Johnson. “Instead of simply showcasing our high standards, which felt off brand and could risk being met with eyerolls, we knew we had to take a different approach – one that matches the authenticity demanded by our younger target demographic. Although it was admittedly a bit nerve wracking to talk about our own standards as annoying, we’ve always struggled to tell the surprising quality story behind our food and this felt like a real and raw way for us to do just that.” This campaign offers a real glimpse of what happens in a Jack’s kitchen, lending believability to the painstaking quality that goes into each menu item. It also offers a peek at the camaraderie amongst its team members – a camaraderie that comes from working together in stressful, albeit fun situations that are shared experiences of anyone who’s worked in a restaurant.
Lindsay Eady, Creative Director at the Garden, echoed this sentiment on the development of the bold and unique campaign concept: “In wanting to develop an insight-driven, real campaign that fit with the brand, Jack’s was brave enough to spill real employee complaints, and we sought out to cleverly twist them into an end product benefit. They take extra steps and care to make food the right way, the annoying way, and that makes all the difference in the final quality,” said Eady.
Reflecting Jack Astor’s commitment to authenticity, the campaign further defies norms by casting its own hourly team members and managers – not a single professional actor was used. All are current SIR Corp Kitchen employees, including pantry and line cooks, kitchen managers and the brand’s Culinary Director. Not only do Jack’s own chefs star in the campaign, but they’re also quoted. Many of the copy lines used in the digital and OOH creative are verbatim from interviews conducted by the Garden during campaign creative development with kitchen staff members to create an authentic narrative.
The brand also invited a select group of content creators into one of their kitchens to work 1:1 with the brand’s chefs for a behind-the-scenes look, getting an unbiased hands-on learning experience of the annoyingly high standards that go into each dish.
The authentic, gritty campaign marks another instance of a 30+ years tradition of Jack Astor’s breaking conventions followed by typical chain restaurants. “Just because some of our signature items can be considered ‘mainstream’ doesn’t mean we need to be mainstream in our approach to making or telling the story of them,” said Peter Fowler, CEO of SIR Corp and renowned Canadian restaurant industry provocateur. “We know it’s a pain in the a** to hand-bread every chicken finger to order or bake bread in-house every day, but we’ve never shied away from things that are hard if they’re the right thing to do. We’re proud to tell the story of our food, our way.”
Campaign spots can be found on digital channels that reach the brand’s younger target audience like Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Reddit where the unfiltered gritty nature of the campaign lives best. Annoyingly High Standards will be in market to February 24th.
Title: Annoyingly High Standards
Client: Sir Corp, Jack Astor’s
CEO: Peter Fowler
Vice President, Marketing: Anesie Johnson
Project Lead, Creative Campaign: Megan Boate
Senior Brand Manager, Jack Astor’s: Ellana Benoliel
Director, Culinary Operations: Adrian Whitfield
Agency: The Garden
Chief Strategy Officer: Shari Walczak
Chief Creative Officer: Shane Ogilvie
Creative Director: Lindsay Eady
Art Director: Mriga Suchdeva, Andronicus Wu
Copywriter: Nuala Murray, Jon Dawe
Strategy Director: Jenn Kittmer
Business Lead: Kendell Edney
Project Lead: Delaney Brough
Content Strategist: Julia Zammit
Production Company: Undefined
Executive Producer: Julian Weiman
Director: Clay Stang
Director of Photography: Angel Navarro
Producer: Julian Weiman
Photographer: Gary William Ogle
Photographer’s Assistant: Tessla Stuckey
Editorial Company: Saints Editorial
Executive Producers: Emily McKay
Editor: Jake Heise
Online: Darling VFX
VFX Artist: Alyssa Krystin Schmidt
Executive Producer: Morgan Campbell
Colour Company: Darling VFX
Colourist: Patrick Samaniego
Color Assistant: Eric Kingsbury
Executive Producer: Morgan Campbell
Audio House: Vapor Music
Creative Director: Dustin Anstey
Executive Producer: Kailee Nowosad
Media Agency: Cairns Oneil
Account Managing Director: Tim Hughes
Head of Digital Planning: Rachel Schmidt
Director, Integrated Planning: Trish Irwin
