Today in Ads Based on Five-Year-Old Memes That Were Big Enough to Be Mentioned in The Atlantic News, agency Johnson & Sekin and prod co Republic Editorial (both of Dallas) have released a slightly “stickier” version of the first-ever TV campaign for vaguely Asian food chain Pei Wei.
The key to this one is the mysterious “Randall,” who talked over some National Geographic footage on YouTube to create “The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger” back in 2011 and will now live on forever in Wikipedia entries and meme roundup videos.
The chain came to life as spin-off of Scottsdale-based P.F. Chang’s back in 2000, and its freshman ad launched three weeks ago after a private equity firm acquired its parent company and the “Wei Better” tagline debuted.
The first :30 was a basic fast food porn spot introducing the new honey seared chicken offering, but this one is a little longer and a little heavier on the lisp. They just got “Randall” to do what made him briefly famous by dubbing himself talking over the original in a stereotypically gay voice!
Look, a fire!
The campaign page and this GIF claim that Pei Wei’s product is “officially making the honey badger care again.”
Officially making the Honey Badger care again: http://t.co/FiH3lS99Br #HoneybadgerDontCare #HoneySearedChicken pic.twitter.com/kesQNau9kQ
— PeiWei (@PeiWei) October 9, 2015
More accurately, it’s making your cat-tastic aunt remember that one video that she shared on Facebook in 2012.
Something tells us she loves chicken–and that there’s a Pei Wei within driving distance of her house.