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Perdue’s "Winging It" wins big with Wayne Brady
821 Plays8 days ago
Elizabeth Doughman, editor, WATT PoultryUSA and Poultry Future, and Jody Hallman, vice president integrated marketing, Perdue Foods, discuss how an innovative approach to chicken marketing won over consumers.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Future of Poultry podcast series.
00:00:12
Speaker
Hello, I'm Elizabeth Duffman, the editor of Watt Poultry USA and Poultry Future.
Winging It Campaign Overview
00:00:17
Speaker
In today's episode, my guest is Jody Hallman, Vice President of Integrated Marketing at Purdue Foods.
00:00:24
Speaker
At the 2025 Chicken Marketing Summit, Purdue Foods won the Chicken Marketer of the Year Award for their Winging It campaign. These ads featured improv comedian Wayne Brady and a series of creative social media posts leading up to the Super Bowl.
00:00:38
Speaker
Thanks for joining me today,
Innovative Advertising Strategies
00:00:40
Speaker
Jodi. Happy to be here. Thanks for having us. So what drove the strategic decision to move away from traditional Super Bowl advertising to a live, improvised social media campaign?
00:00:51
Speaker
It's really interesting because for this to be our first ad, effort where we really doubled down on being the second largest food consumption day of the year, one would think that you would take a traditional route.
00:01:02
Speaker
But what we really wanted to do was take the opportunity to use a recent innovation that had launched in the market, Purdue air Fryer Ready Wings. We wanted to hero them, which is relatively easy to to do on a Super Bowl day to bring wings to the forefront. But what we really wanted to also tap into was the idea and the nuance that we knew that All of the consumers that are watching the Super Bowl are going to have multiple screens. So we really wanted to break into the second screen rather than trying to just support a one and done production where we were going to put the entire budget against one commercial
Second Screen Experience with Wayne Brady
00:01:41
Speaker
spot. running once during the game, which really was in all honesty, out of our budget. We decided to really take an innovative approach to thinking about that second screen and what would it take to break through on that screen. So whether that be an iPad or your phone, or it was just more about how do we create cross section where we could create a experience worth watching throughout the game on the other screen. And that's what really led to our partnership.
00:02:08
Speaker
I love that. I think that's a fantastic idea. How did this campaign strategy fit into Purdue's broader positioning in the competitive frozen and prepared foods market? So this really was helpful for us because this particular innovation really was a game changer when it came to the frozen foods case.
00:02:27
Speaker
Air Fryer Ready Wings that Purdue launched in... fall of 2023 was really something that we were excited about because it was about a restaurant quality experience brought to you at home. And so really what we thought was interesting, right, is about when you think about an expert in improv and Wayne Brady's expertise, it was really about utilizing his comedy club, right, experience and bringing it then to that second screen during the time. So it was this idea of bringing a
00:03:00
Speaker
Different experiences that you otherwise need to go and potentially lean into being somewhere or being present somewhere else and bringing it more close to the home and easier for the consumers to take in. So we really thought there was an interesting
Execution and Collaboration Insights
00:03:14
Speaker
connection with that. And then, of course, it was relatively easy once we came up with the name Winging It.
00:03:19
Speaker
That covered all the bases. And so we really made it relatively easy for Wayne and his team to really rally behind it and the concept of all that we were trying to do, which was create a unknown experience and understood that we were going to let the game as well as the attributes of this great new product line that we had, they were going to be the two constants. So we wouldn't know what was going to happen with the game, but as the game was taking place, that's what led into the fodder of how we tied it into the entertainment that Wayne created on the spot.
00:03:54
Speaker
I love how all of the pieces came together and just fit. And I love the name of winging it. It really feels like it describes it really well.
Effective Marketing Strategies and Lessons Learned
00:04:02
Speaker
What lessons from this campaign are you applying to other product launches and seasonal marketing efforts?
00:04:09
Speaker
I think the big thing for us was we really took the KPI serious. It wasn't just although we loved it and it was a fun campaign, we also wanted to make sure that we really did our due diligence. This was a really high returning from a ROAS perspective program for us. So probably one of the biggest things that we're taking away is that it doesn't necessarily have to be a program that has ah length of time to it to be insightful and actually perform efficiently and effectively. this was really a campaign that was tight. It was a three-week type thing because it was a few weeks leading up. You really are concentrated on the day and then you're really working at the back end on earned media that maybe comes out post game and reviews. So it really though, for it to make a mark on our mixed model for the year was pretty impressive. So now as we think about new launches or we think about seasonal moments, it doesn't necessarily need to be that you think about it as a quarterly activity and what do you do over 12 weeks.
00:05:10
Speaker
It can be something as simplistic as three weeks. So what, how do you really get poignant? How do you get breakthrough and how do you do it quickly?
Personal Touch and Future Events
00:05:19
Speaker
That's amazing. So since we're talking about chicken marketing and poultry marketing, what's your favorite poultry dish to eat?
00:05:26
Speaker
So even with a little bit of thought to it, it's tough. I eat a lot of chicken. i am like most households in America, but I would probably have to go with just a good old breaded chicken cutlet.
00:05:39
Speaker
You got to go with a classic for sure. So thank you for speaking with me today. i hope that listeners will join us at the 2026 Chicken Marketing Summit, which will be held at the Innesburg Resort in Palm Harbor, Florida on July 27th through 29th, 2026.
00:05:56
Speaker
Registration for this event will open in the spring. And for more information, go to www.chickenmarketingsummit.com. Thanks again, Jodi. And thanks to you for tuning in.