Chicken is the most consumed meat in many countries, and Colombia is no exception. There, however, the local poultry producers’ industry association has sought to elevate the meat’s reputation and raise consumption further still.
Chicken’s ubiquity means that, all too often, it is overlooked. Consumers may talk about how tasty beef, pork or fish dishes are, but they don’t talk about chicken in the same way. Chicken is simply the meat that consumers eat the most!
To counter this, the National Federation of Poultry Producers of Colombia (Fenavi) ran a multi-pronged promotional campaign between 2019 to 2021, and results have proved positive.
Luis Rodolfo Álvarez, Fenavi’s director of chicken meat development, first started to tackle the problem four years ago, starting by reviewing previous studies into Colombian chicken. Of all the issues examined, one in particular caught his attention – that while chicken may form part of everyday life and is the most consumed meat, it was not the most valued.
Beef is the most valued meat in Colombia. Being 45-50% more expensive than chicken, it can even be considered an aspirational meat. Chicken, on the other hand, an affordable protein, formed part of the weekly diet, but appeared to offer nothing beyond that.
Chicken’s affordability, on the one hand, has been very positive for the producer, but everyday life can lead to monotony and boredom.
“This is very important,” notes Álvarez. “After the studies I carried out, I realized that this was what needed to change.”
Luis Rodolfo Álvarez, Fenavi’s director of chicken meat development has worked to elevate the reputation of chicken from being an everyday staple, to meat that is versatile, more sophisticated and generally more appetizing. Courtesy Fenavi
Reviving lost status
Three or four decades ago chicken was very expensive, even more so than beef.
“At that time, chicken was aspirational and those who consumed it did so only on weekends or special occasions,” notes Álvarez.
Chicken meat was so expensive that it even resulted in a phrase developing locally. When a restaurant bill, for example, is surprisingly expensive, diners might exclaim: “Who ordered chicken?”
As production costs fell, however, due to improvements in genetics and nutrition, for example, chicken’s aspirational attributes also disappeared and, as Álvarez notes, chicken meat simply became a staple part of the diet.
Fenavi decided that, as a first step, it would work to position chicken, in its various forms, as the first thing that came to consumers’ minds when they thought about meat.
More than rotisserie
Rotisserie chicken is common throughout Latin America.
“It has been rotating in the same machine for 30 or 40 years,” laments Álvarez. There has been no change or variation. Ninety percent of the menu at rotisserie chicken outlets is chicken, there is little else.
In restaurants generally, menus tend to have a limited chicken offering. Of, perhaps, 30 dishes on the menu, only two or three will be chicken, and this should not be the case in a country such as Colombia, where chicken is the principal animal protein consumed. At 35 kg per head, per capita chicken consumption is twice that of beef, at 17 kg, for example, and significantly higher than pork at 12 kg and fish at about 8 kg.
Given these limiting factors and that the gastronomic world can be considered the showcase of desire, Fenavi decided to work on encouraging consumers to use chicken in new recipes, and dishes that were more sophisticated than the standard rotisserie chicken or regular breast fillet were developed.
In 2019, Fenavi began to talk about chicken in a different way, changing its communication target from the general public to millennials, the new heads of households, aged 25-45. This group is keen on new food concepts, such as bowl food, rustic pizzas and gourmet burgers, for example.
The change in communication strategy occurred in two stages. First, a more relaxed choice of language was adopted for this group. A character called Mi amigo el Pollo, or My friend the Chicken, was created as an influencer and the spokesperson for Colombian chicken. The character was launched along with a reggaetón song. The Mi amigo el Pollo campaign ran from 2019 to 2020.
The character became the center of various promotional activities, including radio interviews, visits to trend-setting chicken restaurants or special events where recipes from these restaurants were prepared to show new ways of consuming chicken.
The subsequent campaign left Mi amigo el Pollo behind and focused on chicken as protein.
Next step
Fenavi subsequently developed dishes and recipes which presented chicken in an appetizing and attention grabbing way and adopted the slogan “100% Colombian Chicken, 100% Irresistible.”
For radio slots, both male and female voices were used to promote new recipes.
One of the association’s television advertisements featured a person visiting a restaurant and seeing photographs of the various dishes – menus in Colombia rarely tend to carry photographs – along with appetizing descriptions. An example of a featured dish was chicken in a three-pepper crust with a blue cheese sauce, presented on a bed of purple potatoes.
With this sort of description curiosity is piqued, and chicken ceases to simply satisfy a need and becomes a more attractive way of consuming animal protein.
Results
Data analytics and brand consulting company Kantar has measured the results of Fenavi’s various campaigns.
Álvarez reports that they were deemed to be highly original, interesting, relaxing and pleasing. Good results were achieved across TV, radio, digital and print.
The new campaigns continued Fenavi’s tradition of asking consumers whether they would consume chicken more often and managed to increase consumption by 13% year-over-year. Advertising was deemed to have presented chicken as being tasty.
Consumers now eat chicken with much greater frequency than before – even for a romantic first dinner!
The photography in FENAVI's campaign was recognized at last year’s World Independent Advertising Awards (WINA) festival in Dubai.
Other activities
In addition to these latest campaigns, Fenavi also hosts the annual Colombian Chicken Festival, which comprises various contests and chicken tasting events.
During the pandemic, it formed an alliance with television program MasterChef called MasterChef at Home in which the public prepared dishes at home which were subsequently evaluated by chefs. The program centered on how, through innovation and the meat’s versatility, there are now more opportunities to prepare chicken at home.
Change of logo
As part of the campaign to raise chicken’s profile Fenavi launched a new logo.
The new logo is more modern than its predecessor, and, using the colors of the Colombian flag, depicts a rural scene within the head and shoulders of a chicken.
The thinking behind the logo has been to connect the consumer with the countryside and nature, with freshness, taste and low processing, in contrast to imported chicken meat, which is frozen.
