2019 in Media – When the chicken sandwich wars go viral

In retrospect, we all should have seen it coming.

We should have guessed that one of the biggest social media battles of the year would be a corporate fight over … chicken sandwiches.

The Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich empire has long had connections to social conservatism.  And while the company founder’s connection to evangelical causes and “closed on Sunday” business model has brought it criticism, those same factors have made it a  favorite on the political and religious  right. (Along with all the people who simply like their sandwiches.)

On my own college campus, there was a bit of a dust up nearly four years ago when conservative activist news sites made a huge deal out of the restaurant being “banned” from the University of Nebraska Student Union.  Nothing of the sort happened, of course; there was simply a discussion going on as to what fast food restaurant Lopers wanted added to their student union. After all the fuss, Chick-fil-A has a been a popular lunch spot on campus for the last year. (You can get the back story here.)

While there has long been talk about boycotts of the sandwich slinger from progressives, I’ve long believed that the company has benefited more from being the signature fast food for conservatives than from being hurt by critiques from the left. (I would suspect that progressives rarely have favorite large corporations…)

So Chick-fil-A has long been the default winner in the battle of the chicken sandwiches.  Despite massive corporate efforts, McDonalds has not been able to create a break-out chicken product since the ubiquitous Chicken McNuggets went national back in 1983.

Kentucky Fried Chicken has the most stores of mass-market chicken cooks, but they have always been known much more for their bone-in and strips than for their sandwiches. (Note that while there are more KFC stores, Chick-fil-A sells a lot more chicken.)

The  same was true of my personal favorite – Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, until the summer of 2019.

Da. Da. Dum…. (That sounds ominous)

Popeyes, despite having a white founder, has long had soul food sensibilities and has long been built around the concept of spicy chicken. On Aug. 12, 2019, Popeye’s introduced their chicken sandwich, available in both spicy and regular forms, to the world, and the world went crazy, with hours long lines extending out the doors of every restaurant. Chick-fil-A could not let this shot on their bow pass, and so as a proper 21st century company, they tweeted out:

To which Popeye’s responded with a rather cheeky retweet:

Notice the differences in response – Chick-fil-A as of this writing got 23,000 likes, while Popeye’s response go 320,000. It even generated a visit from the Distracted Boyfriend:

The Popeyes sandwich proved to be so popular that before the end of the month, the company had sold out of the product. But the social media battle didn’t really quiet down.  At one point, Popeyes suggested to customers they could bring a bun to the restaurant and place a pair of chicken strips into it.

Popeyes brought the sandwich back to the market on Nov. 3, 2019 – National Sandwich Day, which happened to be on a Sunday (when its rival is closed).

Chick-fil-A had plans for celebrating National Sandwich Day before belatedly realizing what day it was.

In mid-November, Chick-fil-A surprised both supporters and critics by announcing that their charitable foundation was going to change its giving pattern and no longer contribute to a pair of charities that had been perceived as anti-LGBTQ. Much of the response to this change came from the political right who viewed the new policy as a betrayal of the company’s conservative supporters. Typical was the response from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee:

Other players in the fast food battlefield have tried to rise to relevance through all of this, with McD’s trying for a Chick-fil-A sandwich clone in a pair of markets, received only minimal attention.

Wendy’s sassy Twitter account generated a fair amount of notice a couple of years ago when then 16-year-old Carter Wilkerson got the chain to give him free chicken nuggets for a year when he got a tweet about the crispy product shared more than 3.6 million times, setting a record for Twitter.

An important thing to remember through all of this is that the whole chicken sandwich wars are primarily about telling a story about something that is easy to buy and enjoy. It’s not really about the food. (HINT: If you like chicken sandwiches, you will likely enjoy both Chick-fil-A’s and Popeyes’ offerings.  McD’s? You’re on your own there…)

David Portalatin, a food industry analyst, told The Washington Post, “This whole thing is not about chicken sandwiches. It’s about the virality of the story. And it’s a reflection of the performance of chains like Chick-fil-A.”

And finally – a bit of an uplifting story in the battle over fried chicken sandwiches. As the narrative over the Popeyes sandwich was escalating last summer, musician Bri Hall responded by tweeting about the Washington, D.C. restaurant the Roaming Rooster’s chicken sandwich.  Her tweet went viral, bringing in long lines for the restaurant and its four food trucks.  Roaming Rooster, owned by an Ethiopian immigrant, repaid Bri with a promise of free chicken for life.