The Popeyes Chicken Sandwich: One Year Later

McDonald’s Big Mac. Burger King’s Whopper. Dairy Queen*’s Blizzard. The quick-service restaurant industry is built on iconic menu items. Now, in the age of social media, these food items exist as much in the cultural zeitgeist as they do in fast-food bags across America. 

And in 2019, a new menu item climbed to the highest reaches of cultural relevance thanks to social media: Popeyes’ Chicken Sandwich. The sandwich was simple enough — made up of a buttermilk-battered and hand-breaded white-meat chicken filet, two barrel-cured pickles, and a choice of classic mayo or a spicy Cajun spread, all on a toasted brioche bun.

This August, Popeyes celebrated the one-year anniversary of the tweet that launched its massively popular chicken sandwich. In the months following that tweet, the industry saw one of the most astonishing product launches in restaurant history.

It was the tweet read ’round the world, aimed at Chick-Fil-A — “y’all good?” Twitter exploded with likes, retweets, commentary and memes. Late-night talk-show hosts joked about it. Celebrities chimed in. A June report in Ad Age cited Popeyes estimations that the tweet earned more than 20 billion impressions worth about $220 million. With that, the so-called “Chicken Sandwich Wars” had begun. The company said that between Aug. 17 and Sept. 1 of 2019, Popeyes was getting 16 tweets a minute about the sandwich for more than 338,000 conversations.

For Popeyes, the economic results were immediate. People waited hours in line to try the new sandwich. Individual restaurants reportedly sold about 1,000 Chicken Sandwiches a day. Only eight days after The Tweet, on August 27, the brand announced to the world that the initial run of the Chicken Sandwich had sold out, even though the company had planned enough product to last through September. 

Popeyes enjoyed a 10.2 percent same-store sales bump in 2019’s third quarter, even though the $3.99 Chicken Sandwich graced the menu for just two weeks of the quarter. It returned to menus on November 3 — a Sunday, in another shot at Chick-fil-A — and Q4 sales rose a staggering 37.9 percent. By the end of 2019, Popeyes had more than doubled its Twitter followers. 

Of course, no one predicted that a global pandemic was around the corner. Luckily, the Chicken Sandwich proved immune to one of the most challenging crises in modern restaurant history. The company has credited the sandwich with helping it weather the coronavirus pandemic with large same-store sales gains, including an incredible same-store sales growth of 29.2% in the first quarter of 2020. 

Still, Popeyes wasn’t just lucky — the brand was strategic. The momentum of the Chicken Sandwich was combined with a wide availability of drive-thrus and a robust digital platform that the brand continued to emphasize. All of this helped the brand sustain COVID-19 better than most. 

The brand has sold 203 million chicken sandwiches in the past year, Popeyes said in a statement. The division’s same-store sales in the second quarter rose 24.8% despite COVID-19 restrictions.

What’s especially critical for Popeyes is how its newfound success isn’t confined to the Chicken Sandwich, nor is it relegated to new customers who are just curious what the fuss is all about. According to QSR Magazine, not even half of Popeyes tickets contain the Chicken Sandwich, and the overwhelming majority of those tickets do also have other things from the menu, like bone-in chicken and sides.

In other words, Popeyes’ Chicken Sandwich is bringing in new customers, increasing traffic from old customers, and driving more sales for the rest of its menu — all while helping Popeyes collect more data on purchasing behavior and increasing customer loyalty. 

This success has also helped with franchise development. Although Popeyes is planning some closures due to COVID-19, the brand hopes to develop more restaurants in the U.S. and abroad. In addition to the Chicken Sandwich, another big advantage the brand has is the support of its parent company, RBI, which has several global franchise partners with the resources to build Popeyes locations around the world. Last year, Carrols Restaurant Group — RBI’s largest franchise partner and owner of more than 1,000 Burger King restaurants — acquired Cambridge Franchise Holdings, which came with 55 Popeyes units and development agreements for 70 more. 

Moving forward, potential franchisees will be attracted not only to Popeyes’ profitability but also the impressive way in which the brand handled the success of its Chicken Sandwich to become a legitimate contender in the QSR segment. For example, McDonald’s franchisees asked the company to develop a new chicken sandwich to compete in December. KFC also entered the ring with the launch of an upgraded chicken sandwich offering in May.

Now, Popeyes is honoring its incredible year and launching a new marketing campaign to say goodbye 2020 and welcome in 2021. Playing off that celebrated Tweet, the brand is now asking the same question we all are: “2020 – Y’all Good?”