With celeb-filled campaigns that paired a Queer Eye icon with an Olympic hero, settled the Star Wars vs Star Trek debate, and revived Waynes World to support local businesses, Uber Eats are famous for placing themselves at the heart of culture.

Unfortunately, when it comes to Thanksgiving dinner, Uber Eats don’t really have a seat at the table. And because Turkey is such a time-honoured tradition, neither do Popeyes. Which is a shame, since fried chicken is the far more popular poultry.

Our brief was twofold. First, we were asked to get people talking about Uber Eats and Popeyes on a weekend where they are mostly ignored. Then, we had to drive an increase in Popeyes orders on Uber Eats, on a weekend where they tend to fall away.

We realised that if we nailed the first, the second would follow.

Every year, millions of Americans make the herculean effort to prepare a turkey, when really, they just love that chicken from Popeyes. And despite the world being turned on its head in 2020, Fried Chicken was still not considered as a permissible choice for Thanksgiving dinner.

So, to smuggle fried chicken into the Thanksgiving dinner conversation, we took inspiration from the Ancient Greeks and hid it inside a specially designed trojan turkey casing. That way, fried-chicken fans celebrating away from their families could appear to be upholding tradition, while secretly flipping the bird on it.

We also created the Churkey Meal promotion: Eight pieces of fried chicken (pre-carved and cooked to perfection), four buttery biscuits and a side, delivered to your door for less than $20.

While turkey may be tradition, we noticed a stir through our ongoing social listening which uncovered a trend: Americans were calling for fried chicken to replace turkey as the Thanksgiving meal.

Diving deeper with our own research, we found that despite turkey being a well loved tradition, 65% of respondents said they’d prefer Fried Chicken over Turkey if given the choice.

This led to our insight: Tradition was dictating social conventions around what should be served at Thanksgiving, forcing Americans nationwide to compromise on their personal preferences.

We knew Uber Eats and their restaurant partners could play a key role in liberating the Thanksgiving table. While there are a number of Chicken chains in the USA, we knew Popeyes was the ideal restaurant partner with their high volume of restaurants, fervent brand love and younger, SINK & DINK demographic more likely to break from tradition and “Choose Chicken This Thanksgiving”.

We worked with Vert, a design company, to create the Churkey packaging – making it look realistic and ridiculously shareable. Then, in the week leading up Thanksgiving, we launched the Churkey by sending test kits to influencers that best aligned with the brands and target market – chefs, foodies, superfans and hypebeasts on TikTok and Instagram.

Interplay between Uber Eats and Popeyes on social media made sure both sets of fans knew about the Churkey and this was supported with OLVs, eDMs, Instagram Stories, Facebook Carousels and push notifications to ensure no one would miss our little Thanksgiving miracle.

The campaign ran from 17th of November until the end of the Thanksgiving weekend (29th), In that time, it was covered in major news outlets across the globe including Thrillist, Fox News, and the Wall Street Journal – making waves in a news cycle dominated by the election and COVID-19.

The nation gobbled it up with over 22 million media impressions over the campaign period, generating $6.5M in ad value equivalency.

In the week that the Churkey Meal was available, Uber Eats saw a more than $1M increase in sales from Popeye’s – a 34% increase during a period where sales tend to slide. In fact, the Churkey brought a 21% increase in new eaters to Popeyes.

It was clear from the conversation on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook as well as the huge increase in sales that the Churkey not only empowered Americans to order fried chicken on Thanksgiving, it made it the most sought after dish.