Jason Woodmansee

Chick-Fil-A Ads Are the Worst Ads In the History of Modern Civilization

Let me start by saying I love Chick-Fil-A - I’m even the Foursquare mayor of the one by my office. But their ads drive me absolutely insane. Certifiably crazy. Why? Well, let’s picture the meeting of the Chick-Fil-A creative team back when they came up with this campaign:

“OK, so the idea is that we put cows in our ads.”

“But we sell chicken.”

“I know, but here’s the genius - the cows will be campaigning for people to eat chicken - you know, to save their own lives.”

“That’s fantastic! We can have the cows do all sorts of crazy things - hold protests, parachute into football stadiums - I love it!”

“Wait, won’t it be difficult for people to believe that cows, which aren’t the smartest animals in the world, are able to A) be aware of the fact that they are bred for slaughter, B) be organized enough to come up with an elaborate plan to trick the public into eating chicken instead; or C) even be able to write out the signs with their hoofs?”

(pause)

“I know, we’ll just turn some letters backwards & misspell some words - then it’s totally plausible!”

(high-fives all around)

I mean, why did they think that we’d only be able to accept the idea of cows operating airplanes & parachutes if THEY COULDN’T SPELL? If they somehow mastered the art of marketing & mass communications, wouldn’t they have been able to spell and write first? The whole conceit of this campaign drives me nuts. I mean, it’s not like Geico says “you know, having a talking gecko as a spokesperson is pretty unrealistic - let’s have him mispronounce some words to make it more comfortable for people.”

I’d like to think that you will now say, “hey, you’re right - that makes no sense” and will join me in some sort of protest. Maybe standing outside of Chick-Fil-A restaurants with signs that say “Lern 2 spelll?”