There is that shatter crunch to the chicken. as “Chicken on the Run” in the New Orleans suburb of Arabi in 1972: When done right, data showed, guests love Popeyes’ food. And one thing that popped was a fundamental truth of the brand, started by Alvin C. Popeyes commissioned consumer research to “get at the heart of what does Popeyes mean to our guests and our franchisees,” Siddiqui says. In his first year at the helm, Siddiqui traveled across America, meeting employees, franchisees, and even conducting ride-alongs with guests. Sami Siddiqui shares the Popeyes story at QSR Evolution in Atlanta. Chick-fil-A had 2,837 domestic units at year-end 2022, with Wingstop at 1,721, Zaxby’s 922, Church’s 812, and Bojangles 788. and an eye-widening 23,842 international restaurants. KFC finished 2022 with 3,918 stores in the U.S. The broad point being, Siddiqui says, even with recent acceleration, Popeyes remains a bit subscale compared to others in the category. There were more than 200 North America debuts in 2022, featuring the loftiest figure of new franchisees and the largest percentage of freestanding single or double drive-thru locations in five years. The first, non-COVID rattled year following the chicken sandwich-2021-represented the highest number of openings as the brand closed with 3,705 restaurants globally-a net of 254 stores, or unit growth of 7.4 percent.įast forward and Popeyes finished Q1 2023 with 4,178 restaurants globally-2,947 in the U.S. From acquisition to 2020, RBI posted cumulative net restaurant growth of 27 percent at Popeyes. When RBI acquired the brand on March 27, 2017, for $1.8 billion, there were about 2,600 locations in the U.S. This observation wasn’t new to Popeyes its urgency had simply changed in hopes of capitalizing on momentum. “There’s too many chicken sandwiches between that guest and our restaurant,” Siddiqui says of the 10–12-minute drive. Everybody from Taco Bell to KFC to Zaxby’s to fast casuals of every ilk and awareness tier crashed “The Chicken Sandwich Wars” with a mirror goal: “Try ours to see who’s best.’” And like clockwork, each contender invited Popeyes to reenter the fray.īut in the end, what the “battle” gave customers was a lot of chicken sandwiches to choose from. Going back, if there’s one thing Popeyes’ sandwich spawned, it was a flurry of competitive entry that’s still going on today. Popeyes conducted internal research to ask a simple follow-up: How far does a chicken sandwich guest have to drive out of their way to get one? On average, it was 10–12 minutes. Where does buzz mature into something else? Naturally, Siddiqui, the former president of parent company Restaurant Brands International’s Asia-Pacific region before taking his current post in September 2020, has been quizzed “what’s next” for a while now. “It elevated us and really catapulted us from this more niche, regional brand to being a mainstream brand,” Siddiqui says. The trial Popeyes created from the campaign cascaded as guests came in, got the product, and looked around. That rose to $1.8 million (it was $1.823 million in 2022). Popeyes before the chicken sandwich earned roughly $1.4 million per restaurant annually on the top line. By the time 2019 closed, Popeyes had more than doubled its Twitter following and had so much word-of-mouth force it canceled an ad campaign scheduled for Labor Day. Overnight, Popeyes president Sami Siddiqui said at this year’s QSR Evolution Conference, the penetration of the brand grew 33 percent-an unheard-of figure that not only rocketed Popeyes, but took an entire category along with it. Some stores reported serving 1,000 chicken sandwiches per day, and one tweet (the now-infamous challenge to Chick-fil-A) ended up garnering north of 20 billion impressions, according to Ad Age. The company fulfilled as many orders in 14 days as it projected over the following month and a half, leading to Popeyes famously running out of supply. It’s been more than four years since Popeyes’ chicken sandwich landed like a meteor.
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