RBI’s iconic chicken brand Popeyes has revealed a new creative campaign celebrating its hometown connection to New Orleans, in a departure from its focus on user generated content.
The “We Don’t Make Sense, We Make Chicken,” campaign shines a light on the QSR brand’s connection to Louisiana and its approach to making chicken in the local style.
“After five years of user-generated focused creative, the brand is shifting to ensure its creative captures the essence of New Orleans culture and shines more of a spotlight on the unique techniques that go into creating our high-quality, great-tasting chicken with the overarching narrative of ‘We Don’t Make Sense, We Make Chicken’,” said Jeff Klein, chief marketing officers of Popeyes. “There is a clear and powerful story about how Popeyes makes its food in true NOLA fashion – with high-quality ingredients, slow marination, Cajun spices, and battered by hand. We set out to create a campaign that is memorable and sticks with the consumer, while sharing the rich history behind what makes Popeyes food so easy to love.”
Demand for the chicken category in fast food is on the rise, according to research from Technomic. As the chicken category continues to grow, the brand ranked No. 15 on QSR Magazine’s Top 50 Fast Food chains list in 2021 and in 2022, Popeyes reported its strongest year of restaurant growth since RBI acquired the brand in 2017, with almost 4,100 restaurants globally.
“Our new campaign aims to increase guest frequency and drive trial,” explains Klein. “We want to target current Popeyes fans while attracting new flavor cravers who haven’t tried our food yet. We know when a customer tries Popeyes they want to return for more, and that is attributed to the Southern cooking techniques that go into making our food great.”
Popeyes new creative agency of record, McKinney, worked with the QSR brand on the campaign. It will launch digitally in May with out-of-home and TV going live nationally in June.
“Our food is front and center of everything we do, and we have best-in-class products,” reflects Klein. “We wanted to bring forth the magic of Popeyes hometown of New Orleans to serve as the catalyst to tell a rich story about the brand’s culinary credentials. When you look at the industry, our New Orleans heritage is unique and ownable to just Popeyes so we wanted to bring that to the forefront more. While it’s not uncommon for fast food brands to feature the process they use to make their food, it is uncommon to link that process to their place of origin.”
