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Culver’s commercial targets Millennial mothersCulver’s commercial targets Millennial mothers

Ad focuses on chicken-sourcing practices

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

August 9, 2018

1 Min Read
culvers millennial mothers
Culver's/YouTube

Quick-service burger chain Culver’s has launched a new commercial targeting Millennial mothers to promote its three chicken sandwiches. 

The 30-second spot features Culver’s co-founder Craig Culver and his daughter Brittany, a Millennial mother of two children, touring Springer Mountain Farms in Georgia and speaking with the farmer about the low-stress environment and high-quality feed the chickens on the farm have.

In a release announcing the ad, which highlights the chain’s grilled chicken, crispy chicken and spicy crispy chicken sandwiches, Culver’s said that Millennials “value easy, customizable meals and transparency about the quality of the food they’re eating.” 

It also points out that mothers control the majority of their families’ purchases.

Culver’s vice president of marketing Julie Fussner said the spot was intended to put mothers at ease about eating at the chain.

“Like Brittany, I’m a mom who feels the great responsibility of making the right choices for my family,” she said in a statement. “Our goal with this spot was to share some of the very real questions moms have and show guests that they can feel good about eating our chicken.”

Culver’s was an early adopter of increasingly popular chicken sourcing practices, having switched to American Humane Certified birds in 2011. Its chicken is also raised without antibiotics and fed a vegetarian diet. 

The chain based in Prairie-du-Sac has more than 650 locations in 24 states.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected]

Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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