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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Howard chapter.

If you haven’t been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks, I’m sure you’ve heard of the recent craze over the Popeyes chicken sandwich. On August 12th, Popeyes launched their very own fried chicken sandwich, taking after the famous Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich. The new addition to their menu has been their biggest launch in over 30 years, all but proving that consumer promotion is still one of the most effective marketing strategies to date. 

Popeyes’ tweets about the sandwich went viral, receiving over 300,000 likes and 85,000 retweets. Most importantly, thousands of consumers rushed out to see what all the “hype” was about on Twitter. As a result, many Popeyes locations in major cities have since sold out of the sandwich, much to the dismay of consumers. 

As with most things, unfortunately, the initial positive response surrounding the sandwich lasted as quickly as it started. Apex Marketing Group recently estimated that in the past 11 days (after its release), Popeyes received an equivalent of almost $24 million in ad-value from social media, newspapers, radio, and TV. The company would have had to pay millions of dollars to even have a chance of receiving the same engagement during the sandwiches’ first few weeks of launch. Of course, this new information sparked quite a few opinions about not only the implications of the role that social media/pop-culture plays in marketing, but also the role that the Black community specifically played in the sandwiches’ rise to fame. 

Many social media users expressed their distaste for the subject online. One comment in particular  read, “If only we would put that much effort into promoting black-owned businesses.” 

Needless to say, comments like this sparked another huge response across social media. Many insinuated that the Black community would benefit if only they supported one another like they supported the launch of the Popeyes chicken sandwich. The question has become: Do comments like this one have any merit, or are people simply turning popular culture into something negative?

 

Camryn Clanton

Howard '21

Camryn Clanton is a rising junior at Howard University with a Political Science major and Philosophy minor. She's a city girl through and through, having been born and raised in Chicago. She has enjoyed writing since an early age, but a few of her other interests are music and foreign language (been learning Mandarin for 7 years). In the future, Camryn hopes to combine her passions for law and foreign language by pursuing the field of international law. Camryn's main goal with her writing is to inspire, encourage, and uplift the women around her.
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Deni Dedmon is a sophomore speech-language pathology major from Albany, GA. Her first love was writing but her second love was helping others, which led to her choosing a career in speech pathology. When it comes to her writing, she loves to write about everything, from entertainment (she’s an avid Kehlani fan) to book reviews (she’s been reading since the age of one) to controversial topics and current events (ya know, your average angry black girl things). Being the oldest of five girls, she is also passionate about young black girls, their self-esteem, and making sure that they’re proud of being who they are. At the age of seventeen, she became a contributor for MTV Founders and a spring writer for Affinity Magazine.