Eat Mor Chikin

The boisterous bovines finding creative ways to encourage humans to eat chicken not beef.

Comedian and Twitter celebrity @RobFee once tweeted, “What were Chick Fil-A’s other mascot ideas before landing on an illiterate cow begging for his life?” Regardless of the answer to this question, it is impossible to deny Chick-Fil-A’s iconic brand presence, which has obviously not developed by accident. Many other popular fast food restaurants are utilizing advertisements and the power that that specific media type harnesses. Media messages like Chick-Fil-A’s and companies alike are created for the public eye. In general, these marketing campaigns are directed for an audience that, for the most part, remains unknown to the sender. Selecting the proper blend of media outlets for advertisements is crucial. Narrowing down on Chick-Fil-A’s media use in advertisements, their various persuasive and appealing techniques allow the business to grasp a wide audience, instill values and points of view to consumers, as well as perpetuate sales as their marketing media is constantly disbursed and distributed.

Since its founding in Atlanta in 1967, Chick-Fil-A has grown to be the second largest quick service chicken restaurant chain in the United States. To this day, it is still a family owned, privately runned company. Not many family-runned companies have the brewing success that Chick-Fil-A has in a society like today’s. All media messages, whether advertisements, television, emails, magazines, etc., are constructed in some way, shape, and form. Understanding their literature is trying to understand how these messages are created out of diminutive different components to flawlessly construct the message as the creator envisions it. The marketing team for Chick-Fil-A created this ad with the purpose and intentions to leave a lasting impression on their audience and to draw more customers to their product. Besides their initial goal to persuade and inform, I think their marketing team could have had intentions to create this media message to also entertain (seeing that the humor that the advert uses). In the food production industry, advertising is an essential tool used to persuade and beat other competition among fast food chains that might not have as quality advertisements as Chick-Fil-A.

Chick-Fil-A relies heavily on traditional media forms. Billboards, sports stadiums, and water towers. Rarely have I seen a digitized “Eat Mor Chikin” campaign on youtube, radio, or social media platforms. Their traditional ways I think is a format that attracts a lot of attention. It’s different from many other fast food businesses that utilize digital media forms. Besides their traditional format, Chick-Fil-A’s marketing team was very creative and sneaky in the little details they used in constructing their ads. One of their infamous ads is on a billboard which features actual 3D statues of the Chick-Fil-A cows who were drawing messages about their chicken on the billboard. Phrases like “Burgerz R 4 Loserz I’m Just Sayin” and “Way 2 Talentd 2 B Burgerz.” The marketing team formatted clever words, utilizing humor and a short taglpleine to optimize intrusion value. The presentation, which features actual 3D cows, and the formatting with humor and tradition, is definitely one that is pleasing, eye-catching, and creates the overall media message very effective. For 22 years, Chick-Fil-A’s ad agency had been consistent until 2016 when they decided to make an agency switch. With the new agency, Chick-Fil-A is taking its cows down a new road: one heavy with technology. The firm is using digital marketing, like this new website, https://cowzvr.com/, to take the consumer on a (literally) laugh-out-loud trip with the cows by way of Virtual Reality goggles. While the company may have switched ad agencies and is employing a more tech-heavy approach, Chick-Fil-A knows their best bet is still humor.

The intended audience, as mentioned before, remains mostly unknown to the sender (Chick-Fil-A). That is the purpose of advertisements: to reach audiences that are not normally reached by other mass medias. Ads are put in front of our eyes, so we don’t have to go looking for them. Often times they are put so much into our attention that we get tired of them. With the creativity of Chick-Fil-A, that is not the case. Adults, teens, and children alike can all gain entertainment from these ads, on top of that, not even knowing that they are being instilled with the Chick-Fil-A business in the back of their minds. Being a popular fast-food chain within the United States, Chick-Fil-A is able to reach a wide audience of not only all ages, but of all ethnicities, cultures, genders, and demographics. There may be a few vegan or vegetarian groups who oppose chicken consumption overall who are not willing audiences of these ads, but for most of the American population, Chick-Fil-A can reach us all. Most audiences who view these ads will interpret them with great humor and satisfaction, some might see it as offensive (depending on their various beliefs and experiences with the business). Overall, Chick-Fil-A is a respected food chain with good service, enabling them to have a wide audience for any media messages they decide to put out.

The content and present stereotypes of today may have an effect on the lifestyles, values and points of view that are represented or omitted through Chick-Fil-A’s advertisements. Although it isn’t directly indicated in their marketing, Chick-Fil-A is at a competitive disadvantage because they are closed on Sundays due to religious reasons, which could effectively represent 1/7 or 14% of their weekly foot traffic. Their religious stance already has an effect on their sales, it must also have an effect on consumers who fall on the opposite side of the perspective spectrum than that of which Chick-Fil-A falls on. Like mentioned before, vegans, vegetarians, and others who are strongly against chicken or any meat consumption are obviously omitted from this media message directly getting told by cows to “eat more chicken.” Luckily for this business, most of the population is not in that category, thus the success of their fast-food.

Although Chick-Fil-A is built a lot upon tradition, the social media world is something that the company is rapidly utilizing. Because social media is so current and modern, this has an effect on the company and the marketing team realizes that. Being out of the social media loop can negatively affect the business. By using it, they are able to grow their business even further beyond their simple advertisements. The firm combines traditional with digital media. The quick-service restaurant has a high social media presence. Engagement Labs has ranked Chick-fil-A #1 top favorite American brand on all major social platforms: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Chick-Fil-A’s main Instagram page now has 1.1 million followers with the bio “Chicken. Joy. Closed on Sundays”, proving that despite contemporary societal influence, the brand is ever-growing.

Analyzing Chick-Fil-A advertisements and other ads alike are crucial in understanding not only their media messages but also our media consumption. Like mentioned before, we often don’t understand the ideas, thoughts, and values that these companies are instilling in our head without us even noticing. They use sneaky strategies and placement in our everyday lives to capture out attention and possibly grow their consumer base. It is important that we understand the intentions and techniques of not only advertisements, but media messages as a whole so we know what is positive and negative to consume in our day to day scene. Chick-Fil-A isn’t the only business that utilizes these tools and techniques. It is companies all across the globe. Often times we don’t realize the impact that media messages like these truly have on us, whether it may be positive or negative. But being able to analyze and take time to examine a form of media that we usually overlook is necessary to becoming media literate. There are definitely more strengths than weaknesses in Chick-Fil-A’s advertising campaigns. Seeing that they utilize humor for not only persuasion but entertainment too, not forgetting that fact that they are able to send this message to a very wide audience, the company will continue to thrive in an ever growing media society.