Why Popeyes’ Chicken Sandwich Launch is One of the Best in Retail History
It was the summer of 2019 and there was a frenzy. No the world wasn’t coming to an end…unless you couldn’t get your hands on Popeyes’ new chicken sandwich. On August 12, 2019 Popeyes launched a new chicken sandwich. It has pickles, a buttery bun and chicken coated in buttermilk. To many it’s simply…delicious.
It is so good people took notice including employees of the biggest chicken chain by sales in the United States, Chick-fil-A. On August 19, 2019 Chick-fil-A tweeted this in response to the launch of Popeyes’ new chicken sandwich: “Bun + Chicken + Pickles = all the ❤️ for the original to more than one million of Chick-fil-A’s followers. At the time Popeyes had a little over 100,000 followers on Twitter. The hope was that Chick-fil-A would remind its following that it still had the best chicken sandwich in town.
Shortly after Chick-fil-A’s tweet, Popeyes responded with a tweet of its own: “y’all good?” A few words and the #chickensandwichwars began with many fast food chains including Wendy’s and Shake Shack jumping into the fray online, not to mention thousands of Twitter users, trash talking about who’s chicken sandwich was better. The explosion in online activity around Popeyes’ chicken sandwich was so great it was equivalent to millions and millions of dollars in equivalent advertising dollars.
The online sparring also had the affect of actually driving consumers with a serious case of FOMO to try Popeyes’ new chicken sandwich. They wanted to know, is it worth the hype? Apparently it was and within nearly two weeks after launch Popeyes ran out of its famous chicken sandwich and it was unavailable for more than a month.
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One of the keys to the success of this launch was that Popeyes had a team ready to take immediate action on social media in the event anything interesting happened. And the very event they prepared for happened. The team included Popeyes’ marketing, legal, communications as well as social media staff from Popeyes’ agency GSD&M. The team had already set up a “code orange chat” on What’s App where they could quickly discuss any interesting social media activity. The moment they prepared for happened when Chick-fil-A tweeted about their launch. Then Popeyes’ team spent 15 minutes brainstorming how to respond before tweeting: “y’all good?”
If Popeyes didn’t have the foresight to ensure it was ready to respond the chicken sandwich wars likely would have never happened. You can almost imagine what would have happened in a company that wasn’t as prepared. A series of approvals and bureaucracy would have caused the moment to slip away. “The reason it happened so quickly is that we had established trust with the client in the beginning of the year,” says Angela Brown, social strategist at GSD&M “A lot of other clients would have been too scared to act.”
While Popeyes’ twitter savvy has been analyzed endlessly the reality is that without a good product Popeyes’ chicken sandwich would never have become a phenomenon. Popeyes did the work it takes to be a success. It noticed several years before the launch of its sandwich that more and more consumers were eating boneless chicken. It saw this trend at Popeyes and at Burger King which is also owned by Restaurant Brands, Popeyes’ parent company. Seeing these trends Popeyes decided to spend two years creating a new chicken sandwich.
If you have ever tried Popeyes’ chicken sandwich you know that it lives up to the hype. It is so good it caught the attention of the market leader, Chick-fil-A. Make no mistake Chick-fil-A knew how good it was or it wouldn’t have bothered tweeting in the first place. It saw Popeyes as a threat and it responded.
Nothing travels faster on social media than hate and if people hated the sandwich sales would have fizzled quickly. Quality matters. While many are in pursuit of likes and followers a better strategy is to focus on quality and innovation. In the fourth quarter of 2019, several months after the launch of the chicken sandwich Popeyes’ sales were up 42%showing it wasn’t just a savvy tweet that brought the company success but a superior product that started with social media hype but eventually was led by word of mouth from people who tried the sandwich and realized it was really good and then told their friends about it. Popeyes has called the launch of its chicken sandwich the biggest launch in its 30 year history.
Maybe the real lesson of the #chickensandwichwars is to be careful about how you respond to competitive threats. If Chick-fil-A had ignored the launch of Popeyes’ sandwich it is unlikely it would have become a phenomenon. It takes a lot of confidence and courage not to be reactive and to trust in what you have. How often does Apple talk about Samsung? I am sure Chick-fil-A wishes it wasn’t so insecure and instead resisted the temptation to tweet about its competitor.