Marketers spend thousands of dollars each year, trying to outdo other brands to create the best campaigns for their products. While preparation is essential, in today’s social media environment, sometimes it’s the unexpected, the spontaneous, the ability of things to go viral that trumps planning and preparation.

The song Be Prepared says, So prepare for a chance of a lifetime, Be prepared for sensational news, and in a lot of ways that’s exactly what going viral is like. It just so happens that one of the top items of 2019 to do this [go viral] was a meat item – the Popeyes chicken sandwich! I’m going to add to the hype a bit by blogging about it, but I would be remiss if I didn’t, I mean it’s just too good not to.

To catch you up, back in August, Popeyes debuted their new chicken sandwich to much fanfare. Rumor had it that the sandwich rivaled Chick-fil-A’s class chicken sandwich. What ensued next, wasn’t planned marketing, but pure viral magic. After a Tweet from Chick-fil-A to Popeyes called out the fact that Chick-fil-A created the “original” chicken sandwich, a Twitter war begun. The Twitter controversy sent the internet into a flurry, and all of America was vying to taste a Popeyes chicken sandwich; but they sold out after only 2 weeks.

Now I’m sure Popeyes had all sorts of grand plans for marketing the new chicken sandwich, but sometimes the best results are the spontaneous ones. I’ve previously written about the importance of being active on social media, and this Popeyes/Chick-fil-A moment speaks to that.

The only way we’ll see more potential viral moments that are meat-focused is to create more opportunities (i.e.: more content). I’d love to see more meat digital content take a ‘W’ like this, instead of the ‘L’ undercover activist videos leave us with.

I want to know; whose side are you on? Chick-fil-A or Popeyes?

What meat processors can learn from the chicken sandwich war

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