“Served with love”
Brand | Environmental | Web | Philanthropic | Food
Speculative Campaign for the Popeyes Foundation

Team
Creative Director: Nick Bozzelli-Levine
Creatives: Merna Botros, Maggie Ryan, Johnny Talbot

Background
In IU’s Brand Management Practicum class, student teams of four are given 9 weeks to solve a brand’s marketing problem. Our team was assigned Popeyes. We performed research, met weekly with a brand manager over video call, and developed a marketing and advertising campaign. As the creative lead, I directed our advertising efforts.

Objective
Bring increased awareness and relevance to the Popeyes Foundation, particularly among young adults.

Insight
When it comes to fast-food philanthropy, people like hearing stories.

Laissez les bon temps roulet!

Our team introduced the “Popeyes Beignet,” a limited-time item to support the Popeyes Foundation.

In-store wall art tells the stories of Popeyes’ three charitable arms, “food love,” “team member love,”
and one my team added, “local love.”

Local love partners with the Louis Armstrong Foundation and ties Popeyes back to its New Orleans roots.


Execution
A foundation is only as good as the people it helps.

Our research told us that people sure like their stories. Especially with charities. These sorts of orgs can often get caught up in pretty stats and tight graphs. But what people really want is to see other people.

So, we based our campaign off ways we can really show off the “humans” that the Popeyes Foundation has helped. We also found that young adults care about a foundation’s locality. So we suggested that they collaborate with the Louis Armstrong Foundation, and add a “local love” focus to their core pillars.

Ew, core pillars. That’s no fun. Now the fun stuff.

Beignets.

Popeyes used to carry them, we say they should bring ‘em back. Messaging on these beignets keeps a laid-back, slow-cooked, family-friendly tone. Like if Jambalaya could talk. At all times, we combine the comforting flavor the beignets with the positive impact they make on the foundation.

At the end of our nine-week timeframe, we presented our project to our class and a four-person delegation from the Popeyes Foundation, who tuned in over video call.

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