Chick-fil-A is releasing its personal leisure app, with family-friendly exhibits and podcasts

Rooster sandwiches, waffle fries, milkshakes – and now TV exhibits and podcasts?

Chick-fil-A plans to launch a brand new app on Nov. 18, with a slate of unique animated exhibits, scripted podcasts, video games, recipes and e-books geared toward households.

Whereas it is an uncommon transfer for a restaurant firm to wade into the crowded media world, Chick-fil-A has been increasing exterior of meals for years already — with the last word aim of directing extra individuals to its over 3,000 eating places. Since 2019, Chick-fil-A has held the spot of the third-biggest U.S. restaurant chain by gross sales, trailing solely Starbucks and McDonald’s, with many fewer places than both. Final 12 months, its income reached $7.89 billion, based on franchisee disclosure paperwork.

Because it tries to drive extra restaurant gross sales, the corporate has bought branded merchandise, like a sleeping bag that resembles its rooster sandwich’s packaging, and created a spinoff model known as Pennycake, which affords family-friendly video games and puzzles. And for the final 5 years, it is launched animated shorts on YouTube through the vacation season as a part of its “Tales of Evergreen Hills” sequence.

“We have been being attentive to some analysis and conversations we have had with households which can be our prospects, and insights bubbled up that content material and video games are each adjoining to mealtime,” stated Dustin Britt, Chick-fil-A’s govt director of brand name technique, leisure and media.

“Our perception is, as we add worth to their expertise, then we’re giving them a cause to need to take pleasure in extra Chick-fil-A with us,” he added.

A preview of the app considered by CNBC included the primary 22-minute episode of “Legends of Evergreen Hills,” which continues protagonist Sam’s adventures within the fantasy world of Evergreen Hills; the primary installment of “Hidden Island,” a scripted podcast a couple of household that shipwrecks on a abandoned island; and a step-by-step cooking tutorial that makes use of a Chick-fil-A milkshake as a key ingredient.

Prospects can pre-download the free Chick-fil-A Play app for his or her iPhones, iPads and Android gadgets forward of the launch subsequent month.

Chick-fil-A determined to create the app following years of discussions with prospects and as client conduct shifts away from extended visits to its eating places.

Whereas lots of Chick-fil-A’s prospects nonetheless take pleasure in its in-restaurant playgrounds, extra of its prospects at the moment are utilizing its drive-thru lanes and ordering supply, based on Khalilah Cooper, Chick-fil-A’s vice chairman of brand name technique, promoting and media. Rival McDonald’s has slowly been erasing its PlayPlaces, a change possible ensuing from fewer kids utilizing the playgrounds, considerations about well being and security, and a shift away from advertising to kids.

“We’re taking a look at this app as a solution to have a digital playground for the complete household to take pleasure in, whether or not they’re in our eating places, within the drive-thru, driving to soccer follow and even enjoyable at residence,” Cooper advised CNBC. “We would like it to be an extension of our in-restaurant signature hospitality and generosity.”

The content material on the app focuses on themes like generosity, friendship, problem-solving, creativity and entrepreneurship, based on Cooper. Chick-fil-A designed the app’s content material to enchantment to kids 12 years previous and below and their dad and mom.

After the preliminary launch, new episodes of “Legends of Evergreen Hills” will launch weekly by way of the vacations; “Hidden Island” will comply with an identical drop schedule. Subsequent 12 months, the Play app will launch “Ice Lions,” one other scripted audio sequence based mostly on the true story of Kenyan youngsters who need to kind the nation’s first ice hockey workforce.

Many of the content material that will probably be accessible on the app was created with exterior companions led by Chick-fil-A’s inside workforce, however a few of it was licensed. The corporate did not disclose the names of its exterior companions.

“We’re continually occupied with what extra components we will add into the app over time,” Cooper stated.

In August, media publication Deadline reported that Chick-fil-A has been working with exterior manufacturing corporations for content material, together with unscripted exhibits, like a family-friendly recreation present.

“I will say that we’re exploring quite a lot of various kinds of content material, and every part proper now’s a possible alternative for us. We’ll continue to learn and exploring and determining what issues work,” Britt stated.

As legacy media gamers like Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery have came upon, making content material is dear and attracting viewers is troublesome, given the glut of obtainable choices on streaming providers.

For manufacturers like Chick-fil-A, the calculus is a bit completely different. Slightly than utilizing content material to generate income from subscriptions or ads, they’re trying to promote extra of their very own merchandise. That is been the case since Procter & Gamble first sponsored daytime radio exhibits to promote its cleaning soap – creating the cleaning soap opera.

“There’s lots of content material creation that occurs from media homes for manufacturers, and I believe that manufacturers need to faucet into that as a result of it feels extra genuine. It feels extra like content material and never an advert,” stated Stephani Estes, chief media officer for Goodway Group, a digital advertising company.

Newer entrants embrace Starbucks, which introduced this summer time that it’ll create unique content material by way of a partnership with Sugar23. And in January, Chuck E. Cheese stated it is working with “Prime Chef” producer Magical Elves to create its personal recreation present.

“I believe the largest query I’d have, as a advertising skilled, is what’s the enterprise downside that you simply’re attempting to resolve? And is the greenback invested in that content material creation or specific initiative going to pay out greater than spending that greenback some other place within the advertising funnel?” Estes stated.

For Chick-fil-A, the branded content material provides it a solution to join with children – with out the identical stink as promoting on to them – and foster goodwill towards the model from their dad and mom.

And in contrast to Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, Chick-fil-A has some flexibility to determine if the funding is working. As a family-owned firm, it is not beholden to shareholders who would possibly push again in opposition to an costly advertising endeavor.

Chick-fil-A additionally has money to burn, particularly given its meteoric progress during the last decade. From 2018 to 2023, its systemwide gross sales almost doubled. Final 12 months, it raked in web earnings of $1.07 billion. Chair Dan Cathy, who served as CEO from 2013 to 2021 and is father to present CEO Andrew Cathy, has a web value of $10.6 billion, based on Forbes estimates.

Coincidentally, Dan Cathy owns Atlanta-based Trilith Studios, whose phases have acted as units for a lot of Marvel motion pictures and TV exhibits, plus Francis Ford Coppola’s 2024 mega-flop “Megalopolis.” Tax breaks and low-cost labor have helped Atlanta grow to be the “Hollywood of the South” during the last decade. Cathy has beforehand drawn criticism for remarks he made in 2012 opposing same-sex marriage, and the corporate’s basis donated to anti-LGBTQ teams throughout his time as chief govt.

Dan Cathy was in a roundabout way concerned within the improvement of the Play app or making selections associated to the content material, based on Cooper. Chick-fil-A additionally hasn’t labored along with his studio – but.

“We have not at present accomplished any work immediately with Trilith to this point, however that is one thing that we proceed to discover, the place it makes essentially the most sense for each our companies and types,” she stated.