In the first part of the social media monitoring project, we talked about fast food brand Chick-fil-A. The chain is proud of its high-quality food sources and excellent service. By looking at its general social media presence, we concluded that Chick-fil-A uses each platform differently for various purposes. The contents are quite diversified and creative, although they are posted for many reasons, overall, the main focus stays around food quality and service.
This week, we will take a closer look at the brand by listing target customers, discovering brand campaigns, and offering some helpful suggestions for the brand to maintain an active social media role.
Target Customers:
Teens love Chick-fil-A.
As a matter of fact, it is the teens' favorite fast-food chain in America, according to Business Insider. They love the chicken chain for the best food, great service, and cleanest bathroom.
Familiesand millennials are also target customer groups of Chick-fil-A. Most stores are bright and clean. Many are decorated in family-friendly styles with comfortable seating and clean indoor play area for children. It's the perfect place to bring the entire family for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Some stores are even testing family-style meals to further enhance its connection with American families.
On the other hand, millennials make up a good portion of Chick-fil-A's loyal customers. Many of them went to the restaurant as kids with their parents, eventually growing up to be customers themselves. They may or may not have children yet, but millennials are the generation of technology. They contribute to the majority of Chick-fil-A's social media followers and the One App(Chick-fil-A ordering app) users.
Campaigns:
Let's look at the two of the brand's campaigns: "Eat more Chikin" first appeared in 1995, and The Time Shop created in 2019.
In 1995, two rebel cows painted the words "Eat more Chikin" on a billboard in Atlanta, GA. Here began Chick-fil-A's most iconic advertising campaign primarily on traditional media like TV, radio, and sponsored sports. Here are some examples of the cows making appearances in the real world:
The first cow car in 2001
A cow on a giant wall in 2002
The cows paint on a water tower in 2008
Cows listen to Staying Alive on the street.
However, the cow figure exists only in traditional media. They never make appearances on Chick-fil-A's social media accounts. The influence of the campaign later developed into another form of unique activity of the brand, the Annual Cow Appreciation Day happens every July 9th since 2005. On that day, any customer who dresses as a cow can get a free meal from Chick-fil-A. And the chicken chain loves to show off its loyal customers on social media:
If the rebel cow figure appears randomly everywhere, asking people to eat more chicken is a funny attention grabber. It's safe for us to conclude that the Annual Cow Appreciation Day is a representation of Chick-fil-A's emphasis on family connection, as well as a way to enhance the brand image.
The two minutes animated film "The Time Shop" is Chick-fil-A's another way to bring families together.
Their holiday campaign didn't stop at the heartwarming video; Chick-fil-A launched an online Time store at https://www.chick-fil-a.com/timeshop, where people can create their own card of time. Chick-fil-A will print it out and send it to your families, free of charge.
After the online shop was launched, the fast-food chain even opened a real pop-up store in Soho, New York City, to further expand the customer's family time experience.
Challenges and Suggestions:
Let's make a quick comparison between Chick-fil-A's social mention page (left) and Mcdonald's(right).
Here's their Google trend comparison:
It's not hard for us to see that McDonald's gets way more mentions on the internet than Chick-fil-A with the same sentiment ratio, similar passion level, and reach range. Simultaneously, the Google trend shows some quite dramatic ups and downs on McDonald's, and Chick-fil-A's trend stays relatively flat.
The old saying may suggest no news is good news, but it doesn't apply in the age of groundswell. Chick-fil-A needs more buzz to excite people and utilize social media more energetically to promote the brand.
Take the Time Shop campaign as an example. The YouTube video generated nearly 800,000 views but was rarely mentioned on Chich-fil-A's social media. There was one post announcing the launch of the video, and that was it. As we can see from the picture on the right, the Instagram post was liked by 16,000 people, and the only thing they could have done to interact with the brand was to leave a comment. What if Chick-fil-A took one more step and start an online discussion to encourage people to share their Time Shop wishes using #mytimeshopcard? Wouldn't that involve more people in this online campaign?
Also, the rebel cow is such an interesting creature of the brand. It would be fun to see more of the cow figure on its social media, just to add a sense of humor to enrich the brand's current family-centered content and attract younger customers.
Another idea is to encourage TikTok users to challenge food hacks at Chick-fil-A stores. Apparently, there are some trendy nontraditional ways to eat food from the brand by adding additional ingredients, mix with extra sources, or simply DIY your own food with regular menu items. Chick-fil-A should listen to the groundswell, react to the trend. The creative TikTokersc can explore the possibilities they want and encourage people to experience the food adventure of their own.
To conclude the project, we can see that Chick-fil-A has obvious focuses when it comes to social media promotion: food quality and service. It utilizes each platform differently for customers to see different sides of the company. But after reviewing its contents, social mention status, and Google trend page, we conclude that Chick-fil-A can do better with groundswell by listening and energizing the online community.
What do you think of a younger version of Chick-fil-A?
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