Church’s Chicken exposes ‘Spicy Truth’.

Church’s Chicken asks folks to reveal the truth about their favorite spicy chicken with the announcement of their “Spicy Truth” campaign launched nationwide on July 24th.

The Cartel Group took creative license, using actual testimonials provided through Church’s customer service network in addition to consumer feedback received during product development testing, to develop TV messages touting that “Church’s has the best Spicy Chicken .” Additional integrated campaign components for this Atlanta-based chicken giant consist of radio, direct mail, public relations, outdoor, and grassroots promotions.

July 25th marked the one year anniversary of the launch of Spicy chicken, which reversed six years of negative transaction trends and led to double-digit comp sales and transaction growth during the introduction phase. As part of the one-year anniversary of the successful roll-out of “Spicy Chicken” the focus of the “Spicy Truth” campaign is to reinforce Church’s Chicken’s status as everyone’s favorite “spicy chicken with a unique crunch” over all competitive brands.

“There is a fight in the spicy chicken space for which we have done extensive research in terms of testing and perfecting a product that consumers tell us is superior to other spicy chicken products out there,” says Farnaz Wallace, Church’s CMO, chief marketing officer. However, that research was not designed to be claim support for the advertising, and our advertising does not try to prove the ‘best spicy’ claim scientifically. “We approached this campaign from a strong emotional standpoint, using humor to directly challenge competitive messaging and remind our customers and competitor’s customers that we offer the best tasting spicy chicken.”

Inspired by testimonials, the humorous, campy TV campaign consists of multiple 30-second spots in which spicy chicken lovers are subjected to aggressive yet comical “Spicy Truth Lie Detector Tests.” These commercials pit Church’s Spicy chicken head-to-head against any competitor, even home-made, in a bold, self-assured manner by asking, “Who makes the best tasting spicy chicken?” In one commercial, the person in the ‘hot seat’ is portrayed as a Popeyes employee, who is relieved to admit that “Church’s Spicy Beats Popeyes!” That commercial will run in 15–20 markets where Church’s directly competes with Popeye’s.

The commercials also promote an aggressive trial generating offer for the first two weeks of the promotion – a ‘FREE’ piece of Spicy Chicken with any purchase when the consumer goes into a Church’s and repeats the “BEST SPICY CHICKEN” claim from the advertising. Commercials will run on General Market and Hispanic TV, plus for the first time a bi-lingual version will run on general market TV stations in markets with a high concentration of Hispanics. As Church’s continue to build better relationships with its consumers, it is imperative that a realistic reflection of Latino American landscape be demonstrated in the advertising, especially since Hispanics represent 1/3rd of the business.

The “Spicy Truth” campaign centers around the spicy bone-in chicken freshly prepared in store, twice marinated, then double breaded and battered in a unique blend of five different kinds of peppers for a taste that’s “crunchy on the outside and juicy on the inside.”

“The building of the “Gotta Have That Crunch” Brand-Frame in 2004 punched-up Church’s brand awareness and sales,” says Jesus Ramirez, Brand Strategist and co-founder of The Cartel Group. “We are excited about adding another level of success to the Church’s brand by expanding our efforts in the ‘spicy crunch’ chicken arena.”

The TV campaign will be supported with a grassroots public relations push entitled “Spicy Wars”, which will include a series of lie detector tests that will encourage consumers to admit the truth about the spicy chicken they prefer and reward them with a free Church’s spicy chicken coupon. This promotion will take place in three markets – Atlanta, Dallas and Houston.