Don’t Play Chicken With Your Brand

A few weeks ago, Popeye’s launched a new menu item – the chicken sandwich – going head to head with Chick-fil-A.  The skirmish began with a series of tweets and escalated into a Twitter battle royale with every fast food chain jumping into the fray and doing their best to grab some of the media headlines.

Popeyes: “Chicken. Brioche. Pickles. New. Sandwich. Popeyes. Nationwide. So. Good. Forgot. How. Speak. In. Complete. Sandwiches. I mean, sentences.”

Chick-fil-A: “Bun + Chicken + Pickles = all the love for the original”

Wendy’s: “Y’all out here fighting about which of these fools has the second best chicken sandwich.”

Shake Shack: ”If you’re lookin’ for a chicken sandwich (without the beef), you know where to find us.”

Zaxby’s: “Did someone say sandwiches?”

Lines were around the block at most Popeyes locations as poeple waited for sometimes up to an hour for a chicken sandwich.  Locations began to run out of chicken sandwiches and eventually every store across the country had to put signs on their windows announcing they were no longer selling chicken sandwiches.
This is all old news.

What makes it relevant today is that weeks later, Popeyes has yet to restock.  

How can a business do such a great job of building a buzz, driving engagement, getting national attention, and then fail to be able to capitalize on it?  Weeks later and they still haven’t been able to stock some buns and chicken patties?  What?!  

Building a brand is about establishing an expectation, meeting/exceeding that expectation to build trust.  That trust builds loyalty.  Loyalty builds advocacy.

What expectation is Popeyes setting by getting all of this attention and coverage and then not being able to provide the product they are promoting.  You can’t build a brand by letting people down.  

When you focus on building your brand, prepare for the best case scenario of your audience wanting to buy your product and plan accordingly to meet that demand.  Or risk turning your brand advocates into your biggest critics.

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RUSSO is a strategic branding agency that uses consumer insight to change the conversation; forming emotional connections with the target audience. To learn more, click HERE to learn more about our process, RAZOR BRANDING.