Holy cows! Chick-fil-A fires Dallas ad agency that created iconic bovines
The first time I tried a Chick-fil-A sandwich was in 1978 at a shopping mall in South Florida. I was wowed by the flavor and confused by the pickles, which I quickly took off and ate as an appetizer.
But I was hooked -- and happy that I lived in an area that was lucky enough to have a Chick-fil-A.
Back then, they were mostly found in malls, mostly in the South. Founder Truett Cathy opened the first one in a suburban Atlanta mall in 1967, and for the next 20 years or so his company grew modestly.
In 1995, a clever ad campaign starring some spelling-challenged Holsteins implored folks to “Eat mor chikin,” and they did. Chick-fil-A grew by leaps and bounds, and it’s now the top chicken chain in the country, with restaurants in 43 states and sales totaling more than $6 billion a year.
The Chick-fil-A Cows became advertising icons, on par with Mr. Whipple; Clara Peller, Snap, Crackle & Pop; and the Taco Bell chihuahua. They appeared in calendars, 3-D billboards, TV commercials, and had their own website and social media.
So it was pretty shocking to learn Thursday that Chick-fil-A has fired the Dallas advertising agency that gave birth to the bovines.
“It’s not very often that a campaign this successful results in an agency being fired,” Stan Richards, principal and founder of The Richards Group, told Advertising Age in an interview. “It is a little hard to understand, and in many ways it’s the saddest occurrence in my long, professional life.”
Chick-fil-A has hired a roster of agencies to pursue a “Cows-plus” marketing strategy, Jon Bridges, a longtime Chick-fil-A executive who last year became the company’s chief marketing officer, told Ad Age. “They're our mascot, if you will,” Bridges said. “But they aren’t the brand. The brand is bigger than that.”
So, the Chick-fil-A cows will live on for now. But it sounds as if they’ll be sent to the slaughterhouse eventually -- like many other beloved advertising characters.
In March, Dos Equis booked The Most Interesting Man in the World on a one-way mission to Mars. Actor Jonathan Goldsmith had starred in the “stay thirsty my friends” campaign for a decade, and the beer company gave him a classy sendoff. Dressed in a tux, he boards his spaceship in his final ad with adoring crowds cheering him on. The voiceover says: “His only regret is not knowing what regret feels like.”
Here’s hoping the Chick-fil-A cows are put out to pasture gently, because they (and the advertising agency that created them) are truly outstanding their field.
This story was originally published July 22, 2016 at 3:27 PM with the headline "Holy cows! Chick-fil-A fires Dallas ad agency that created iconic bovines."