Chicken Farmers of Canada’s (CFC) latest campaign aims to persuade young gymgoers that eating chicken is the key to reaching their fitness goals.
Instead of telling them how strong chicken can make them, they demonstrated it. The brand built a huge, heavy billboard with variations of the message “Chicken protein makes you stronger” and paid people to carry it throughout downtown Toronto. The messages varied based on where they were displayed. For example, the brand featured the billboard outside the Ripley’s Aquarium with the phrase “‘I just benched 350,’ said no fish ever.”
As part of the activation, T-shirts and chicken seasoning packets were given away. The campaign also included social media promotion, as well as digital signage in more than 140 GTA gyms, plus influencer support. True Media handled media buying, while LG2 was in charge of the creative and Craft managed PR.
Claire Crombez, associate media director at True Media, tells Media in Canada that while CFC frequently uses paid social media, DOOH advertising is an entirely new channel for the brand. Crombez says that the team thought the combination of a billboard with advertising in gyms was a good way to target a new audience for CFC – Gen Z and young Millennials (specifically those who are interested in fitness, exercise, athletics and bodybuilding) – and explaining the advantages of Canadian-raised chicken.
“By layering in strong interest targeting to paid social campaigns and reaching gym-goers in their workout mindset, we are able to capture solid scale and promote chicken as a supreme protein choice to an engaged audience,” Crombez notes.
According to her, targeting Gen Z and Millennials is essential to CFC’s branding and marketing objectives, as its research has showed that they are the Canadians who consume the most chicken, but they are beginning to have a negative perception of it and are getting distracted by protein powders.
“Gen Z and Millennials also make up over 40% of the Canadian population, while producing over 60% of CFC’s web traffic,” Crombez adds. “By reaching these consumers in mainstream platforms and popular areas with strong contextual/interest targeting and a stunt, we can anticipate strong engagement and lifts in brand recall, while helping to raise Canadian chicken usage per capita.”
The campaign is also consistent with the brand’s current positioning launched earlier this year with “Chicken Raised Right,” which reinforced that Canadian chickens are good because they are “raised right.” That campaign included a public activation in which a litter of chicks went out across Toronto, picking up trash in Trinity Bellwoods park, cheering on Toronto Marathon runners, and holding open the door at Union Station.
“Like the ‘Chicken Raised Right’ campaign where we incorporated a stunt, we looked to do something different than previous campaigns,” Josh Stein, chief creative officer at LG2, says. “While a traditional billboard with our message would’ve made sense, a billboard that is heavy to carry and designed to not only deliver our message but to physically represent the power of chicken felt like a better way to put the muscle-building benefits of chicken on display.”
