Popeyes reclaims New Orleans branding in first work from McKinney since appointment

A new campaign from Popeyes Louisiana Chicken likens the brand’s approach to food to the uniqueness of New Orleans, where Popeyes was founded more than 50 years ago.

“We don’t make sense, we make chicken” represents the first work McKinney has done for Popeyes since being named the food chain's creative agency earlier this month. It is set to debut digitally in May followed by out-of-home and TV ads nationwide in June. The campaign leverages New Orleans culture to explain Popeyes’ culinary credentials, which include elaborate and time-consuming techniques that are unique in the fast food industry, according to Jeff Klein, chief marketing officer of Popeyes. The brand is also planning to implement influencer marketing for the campaign. 

“I think Popeyes as a brand has historically been rooted in New Orleans. It’s where we from and maybe we didn’t leverage that enough over the past few years,” Klein said of the brand, which was founded in 1972, in an interview. “New Orleans is a place that has a feel to it, it’s known for its unique culinary heritage, and so seemed like an obvious place to root ourselves in. When I say New Orleans is our spokesperson, I mean it will be the creative context for all the work that we seed, it’s an integral part of our creative framework.”

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The new spot is cast with real people from New Orleans and shows colorful Mardi Gras scenes including beads, floats, a brass band and paraders on motorized easy chairs. Jonathan Cude, chief creative officer at McKinney, said the new approach gives Popeyes an “ownable” attribute that is safe from competitive incursions.

“It’s hard to lead with quality, service, features, or price in any given quarter because your competitors can copy that,” Cude said. “But if you have something that is ownable and distinctive that no one else can touch and no one else can claim, then you drill down on that. And that’s what we had with the authenticity of Popeyes coming from [New Orleans].”

Klein, who joined Popeyes from Little Caesars 11 months ago, described “a foundational year” at the brand, which started with taking on a new media agency (PHD), and later included the creative review won by McKinney. Gut was the brand’s previous agency of record. Popeyes undertook quantitative and qualitative research in the meantime.

“The past three years we’ve had beautiful advertising [with] really great food photography,” Klein said. “I just think in today’s environment, where everything’s cluttered, you need something more in order to stick. You need to be more watchable, and in a framework that creates memory structures over time. That’s why we thought it was important to come up with a new overall framework that we’ll stick to, hopefully, for years.”

Popeyes chose McKinney because it was strong on insights but also had experience with marketing for franchisees, Klein said. Cude described the skill as building “brand over time, sales overnight.”

Popeyes’ comparable-store sales increased by 1.4% in 2022, well below inflation, and decreased by 0.4% in 2021. Patrick Doyle, the new executive chairman for Popeyes parent Restaurant Brands International, has said Popeyes’ kitchens were too complex, leading to guest dissatisfaction.

“Though you and I might believe marketing alone can drive a business, there’s nothing I can do from a communication standpoint that is more powerful than the experience you get when you walk into the restaurant,” Klein said. “The truth is our restaurants aren’t easy to run because of all the steps we take to be sure we never compromise our food quality. But there’s lot of operations projects in the background to make sure that our restaurants become easier to run, which creates happier team members which in turn creates happier guests.”