Chick-fil-a’s Successful Spicy Chicken Metaphor

Analogies. Comparisons. Parallel associations that bring out meaning through an easily understandable story. I’m talking about metaphors: a tool of communication that helps others to see, hear and/or feel something for a better understanding of something that they may not have understood before. It’s a tool of breakthrough for the person or people that you are interacting with, where you are able to change something complex into something simple. Let me give a business example, to explain how this can be leveraged for corporate success.

Chick-fil-a’s June 2010 roll-out Spicy Chicken Sandwich is somewhat of a revolution for the company’s trustworthy line of low-spice mealtime favorites. The sandwich, in development since 2008, is the first new menu item on the fast food restaurant’s menu boards since the 1989 Chargrilled Chicken Sandwich. That coupled with the company’s reliable history since its incorporation in 1964 makes big changes especially monumental for the company. The problem was… while the company’s marketing research showed that the customers were demanding a spicier product, they still had the challenge of ensuring that the new product roll-out was successful with gaining new customers as well. Rather than going to another restaurant when in the mood for a spicy chicken lunch, Chick-fil-a had to significantly alter the minds of their customers to ensure that people associate the restaurant with regular and spicy chicken sandwich options. How did they do it?

The company’s Vice President of brand strategy and design, William F. “Woody” Faulk, worked within the company’s already-lighthearted marketing approach and used fun metaphors of fire and firefighters to convey the message that their menu has really “heated up” with the new item. Easily recognizable Chick-fil-a cows were designed in printed marketing pieces like promotional signs and billboards, wearing fire fighter hats to encourage safety when eating a “fired up” Spicy Chicken Sandwich. Product packaging was designed with light hearted message warning customers that their lunch “may start mouth fires”. Restaurant table toppers showcase a pretend fire alarm lever for putting out those “dangerous” mouth fires. The marketing metaphors changed the product associations in the minds of the company’s customers.

You see, with metaphors, you’re able to resolve a problem with an easily digestible and comprehensible solution. (notice the metaphor: problems cannot be literally “digested” in our stomachs like Chick-fil-a Spicy Chicken Sandwiches can, but similarly, problems can be broken down in our minds into smaller pieces so that we can process them and come to a solution more quickly).

By utilizing fun-filled marketing metaphors for fire-starting flavor innovations, Chick-fil-a has solved a new product sales problem by successfully revolutionizing its customers’ thinking to associate the company’s product offering with a newly diverse range of spicy and non-spicy options. I encourage you to think about how you can leverage the marketing and communication technique of metaphors in your business to simplify sales problems!