No, Popeyes Isn't Making Pizza. In Fact, It Wants to Intercept Your Pizza Order

Popeyes has spent the past year poking fun at Chick-fil-A, first with a snarky tweet ("y'all good?") and later by promoting its runaway-hit chicken sandwich as being available on Sundays—when all Chick-fil-A locations are closed. Now the chicken chain has chosen a new rival: the entire pizza industry. In February, as Popeyes was researching its audiences and opportunities, the marketing team realized the chain's products had surprising similarities to how consumers view pizza: a quick and easy solution to feeding a crowd. With months of quarantine making Pizza Night even more of a weekly tradition in America than it already was, Popeyes was especially interested in grabbing a slice of those delivery dollars with a new campaign for its family meals. The new promotion—offering free delivery for family meal orders, ostensibly in lieu of pizza—wasn't announced until today via a video showing Popeyes intercepting pizza orders and offering to trade them for chicken. However, the chain sparked some classic Twitter-fueled speculation when it tweeted one word: [kickout id="1"] Understandably, quite a few people took this as a sign the chain would soon begin offering a chicken pizza. (For better or worse, that's not the case.) Other brands, per usual, saw the enigmatic tweet getting traction and jumped into the fray: [kickout id="2"] Even competing chicken chain Zaxby's had some fun with it: [kickout id="3"] Frozen pizza brand DiGiorno seemed ready to fire back: [kickout id="5"] But what followers and competitors likely didn't see coming was that the tweet was teasing a video about tailing pizza drivers and offering customers an exchange of chicken for pizza: [kickout id="4"] The spot was filmed in Portland, Ore., with the crew attempting about a dozen trades, with more than half of the pizza buyers accepting the chicken in exchange. The campaign comes via agency Gut, a frequent collaborator with the brand that won the full creative account away from incumbent GSD&M earlier this year. Previously, Gut's work for Popeyes included the "Open Sunday" ad campaign trolling Chick-fil-A and the branded athleisure clothing line inspired both by Beyoncé's Ivy Park collection and Popeyes' staff uniform. Bruno Cardinali, North American CMO of Popeyes, praised Gut's social effort in building anticipation for the promotion without giving away the reveal. "The community management team from Gut did a great job staying true to who we are as a brand. It builds a lot of anticipation," Cardinali said. "That's the beauty of Popeyes, that element of surprise." [kickout id="6"] While fried chicken and pizza might not seem like obvious competitors, Cardinali said Popeyes' research found quite a bit of overlap—and opportunity for the chain to win over pizza-fatigued consumers. "We saw a lot of similarities with pizza: It's a crowd pleaser, it's quick and easy if you're running out of ideas for what to eat for dinner or what to cook," Cardinali said. As lingering lockdowns and social distancing have made pizza delivery commonplace to the point of numbness, Popeyes saw ideal timing to insert itself into the conversation. "They're running out of options for what to eat for dinner. People are just getting a little tired of always ordering pizza," Cardinali said. "So we felt it was a good opportunity for us to drop this campaign." CREDITS: Client: Popeyes Fernando Machado, Global Chief Marketing Officer Bruno Cardinali, Head of Marketing Popeyes North America Paloma Azulay, Global Chief Marketing Officer Nicole Alevizos Hurd, Head of Global Brand Marketing Daniela Chamorro, Marketing Communications Manager Agency: Gut Anselmo Ramos – Creative Chairman / Founder Paulo Fogaca – Chief Operating Officer/Partner Carmen Rodriguez – Chief Client Officer/ Partner Juan Javier Peña Plaza – Executive Creative Director/Partner Ricardo Casal – Executive Creative Director/Partner Guido Fusetti – Head of Art Jeffrey Hodgson – Creative Director Eliana Ferrer – Creative Director Leila Moussaoui – Associate Creative Director Willow Ennen – Art Director Andrew Gonzalez – Art Director Renata Neumann – Head of Production Alexandra Odriozola – Senior Producer Aileen Echenique – Business Director Jennifer Rangel – Account Supervisor Samantha Lemoine – Content Director Sai He – Senior Copy Writer Wilmarie Velez – Account Supervisor Pablo Rosas – Director of Strategy William Ramos – Social Strategy Director Production: Society Connor Martin - Director Harry Calbom - Executive Producer Harry Calbom, Holiday Coles, Lucy Martin - Producers Jov Luke - Director of Photography: Connor Martin - Camera Operator Brandon Daniel - Camera Operator Zack LaRochelle, Jeff Martin - Production Assistants Juan Melara - Colorist Keith Keniff - Music Rebecca Parenteau - Head of Production Drew Brecker - Head of Business Affairs Holiday Coles - Post Producer Editorial: Cosmo Street Editorial Lorenzo Bomicci - Editor Philip Gomez - Assistant Editor Idalia Deshon - Producer Yvette Cobarrubias-Sears - Executive Producer/Managing Partner Nico Cragnolino - Flame Artist John Erdman: AE Artist Mix: Studio Center Debbie Manzione, Casting Director / Account Manager Audio Shippley Watson, Engineer