“How Popeyes maroon and orange polos, jackets and crewnecks - worn to make and sell food at the fried chicken chain - suddenly become in vogue is a tale of life imitating fashion imitating life”. These words from a front page article of The Wall Street Journal tell the story of how a QSR brand hijacked a trending cultural moment in a way spoke directly to a hyper-valuable fan base, talking their language and emulating the style of the brands they covet, while creating new rules for the world of fashion in the process.

Popeyes became a cultural phenomenon in 2019 with the launch of its now famous Chicken Sandwich. As 2020 approached, we were tasked with finding ways to keep the brand relevant and top of mind in the world of popular culture. In January 2020, international pop superstar Beyoncé released a fashion collection with Adidas. It sold out instantly. But not before fans noticed that the items looked nearly identical to the employee uniforms at Popeyes, and erupted a conversation on Twitter. 

Beyoncé dropped a new fashion collection that seemed to be inspired by our employee uniforms. So after her clothes sold out, we gave her fans the opportunity to purchase the next best thing, and put the uniforms our employees wear every day on sale. All launched with a shot for shot recreation of Beyonce’s campaign, this time featuring real Popeyes employees. 

Our target market were fervent Beyonce fans, who watched throughout the entire month of January, as Beyonce sent influencer kits featuring her collection to all of her famous friends. When it came time for the clothes to release, they sold out instantly. Knowing Beyonce’s core fans still had a burning desire for the collection, our strategy was to hijack her fan base by democratizing fashion. 

Within moments of Beyonce’s collection selling out, we sourced the internal Popeyes Employee store for the items that most closely resembled the pieces in Queen Bey’s capsule. Then, we recreated Beyonce’s campaign shot for shot with real Popeyes employees as the models, and sold the clothing on a custom Shopify site meant to mimic that of Adidas. The campaign was announced on Twitter, the same place comparisons between Beyonce’s collection and Popeyes uniforms were born. 

That Look From Popeyes redefined what fashion can be, by turning everyday employee uniforms into a hot selling fashion statement. The campaign generated over 892 million earned media impressions, totaling over $8.8 million dollars in ad value. The campaign became an organic trending topic globally on Twitter during the week of the Super Bowl, the most cluttered and competitive moment in advertising. In the end, the campaign reversed the influencer marketing model, and saw everyday people pay the brand a combined $30,000 to become Popeyes influencers. 

Photoshoot Production: $51,432

Legal: $5,000

Miscellaneous: $500 

Overall: $56,932

For every dollar we spent, we received $154 in earned media value.