Quick Shout Out To Buzzfeed And One Direction For Being The Sole Reason Chicken Fries Made A Comeback, Truly Incredible Stuff
NEW YORK (AP) — Fans of Burger King’s chicken fries may have the boy band One Direction and the website Buzzfeed to thank for the return of the skinny fried sticks. At an event to hype a spicy version of the chicken fries coming out this week, Burger King said it decided to resurrect the fries last year after seeing the enthusiasm they generated on social media.
Eric Hirschhorn, chief marketing officer for Burger King North America, said the company noticed a spike in chicken fry mentions in January 2014 that was traced to a Buzzfeed post titled “35 Foods From Your Childhood That Are Extinct Now.” One of the items on the list was chicken fries, which Burger King sold between 2005 and 2012.
A few months later, Hirschhorn says there was an even bigger surge when a One Direction member mentioned them. The company pointed to tweet by Liam Payne that reads, “I’m so fulllllll!!! Think I just ate my body weight in chicken fries and sides owwwwww.” The tweet — which has more than 94,000 retweets — is confusing because Burger King hadn’t yet brought back chicken fries. That raises the possibility that Payne just left out a comma, and meant to say he ate chicken and fries — not chicken fries.
A representative for Payne said the singer wasn’t available for comment. A Burger King representative said in an email: “Whatever he meant, it certainly helped catapult ‘Chicken Fries’ into pop culture consciousness as a follow up to the Buzzfeed story.” Even if Burger King misinterpreted Payne’s tweet, it worked out for the company. The return of chicken fries as a limited-time offer last summer was successful enough that Burger King added them to its permanent menu this March. A box comes with nine pieces and costs around $3.
Hirschhorn said people tend to get them as an extra, which drives up the amount people spend. Last month, Burger King’s parent company Restaurant Brands International said sales rose 7.9 percent at established stores in the U.S. and Canada for the latest quarter. Burger King may have brought back chicken fries even without the social media encouragement.
Since being taken over by investment firm 3G Capital, the chain has leaned heavily on its past for ideas. In addition the King and Subservient Chicken characters, it has resurrected its Big King sandwich and Yumbo ham sandwich.
Just wanted to throw a quick shoutout to Buzzfeed. They’ve done it again, just when you thought they were all out of changing the world, they go and singlehandedly bring back Chicken Fries. Oh and One Direction, fucking love those guys, no chance it happens without them either. Someday I hope Barstool can reach this level of social influence. Maybe we can get to a point where we hashtag something, wouldn’t that be cool? HA, don’t be silly Big Cat, that’ll never happen. Sometimes you just have to tip your hat and say congrats, you did it. So congrats Buzzfeed, you did it, you brought back Chicken Fries. Did Buzzfeed do it again or did Buzzfeed do it again? Answer, Buzzfeed did it again, obviously.
In all seriousness I laugh sometimes when Dave thinks people steal from us left and right because it’s the internet, everyone steals everything. But he’s actually way more right than wrong when he says it because this shit is straight up comical. Going out of their way to make sure to never mention us. Not like we sat with the guy quoted in this article and said bring back Chicken Fries and bring back The King then saw both of those things come back. Or spent a month hash-tagging everything chickenfries. I want to say “I didn’t eat all those chicken fries for nothing” but it looks like that is in fact exactly what happened, I ate all those chicken fries for nothing.