Chickenflation reached consumers at unexpected touch points when the world was hungry for a solution to the chicken shortage. It’s a world-class example of taking something serious and boring (the stock market) and parodying it in a fun and pointed way. Through a digital price tracker on the NASDAQ board and a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal, we captured the attention of unsuspecting consumers.

Alpha Foods is a challenger brand in a challenger category. As a start-up and relatively new entrant in the highly competitive and noisy plant-based landscape, Alpha was late to the game and business as usual was not going to cut it.

Dwarfed by juggernauts like Morningstar and Impossible Foods, we were being outspent 25:1 and 10:1 respectively. Investors in our biggest competitors included the Serena Williams, Jay Z, and Katy Perry, A-list celebrities whose influence and reach far outmatched ours.

Alpha had a lot of ground to cover on both awareness and sales. As a plant-based brand with huge aspirations, we knew that focusing on vegans was a losing proposition; we needed to convert plant-curious meat eaters.

The challenge: How do we get these reluctant meat lovers to be open to Alpha’s plant-based alternatives?

In an effort to restore balance in the chicken market, we slashed our own prices in inverse proportion to the skyrocketing price of chicken. Using data from the USDA, we monitored the constantly surging prices and adjusted ours accordingly. We inversely pegged the price of Alpha’s plant-based chicken nuggets to the rising prices of chicken. Every time the price of chicken went up, the price of Alpha chicken nuggets went down by the same amount.

Because we were solving a legitimate economic problem, it was only fitting to get the word out in legitimate economic platforms. We created a digital price tracker for the NASDAQ board in Times Square that updated the price in real time and ran an economic analysis in The Wall Street Journal, both of which directed consumers to Chickenflation.com, where they could cash in on plant-based chicken at its current uninflated price.

The growth opportunity for Alpha was not with vegans but with balance-seeking meat eaters. One in three meat-eating Americans was plant curious but hadn't taken the leap because their favorite meat was readily available. How do we make it impossible for these skeptical meat lovers to resist plant-based alternatives? We turned to culture for inspiration.

In May 2021, regional reports of climbing chicken prices began to surface. Shortly after, articles about shortages caught our attention. By July 2021, USDA data showed a price surge from an average of $1.50/lb to nearly $4.00/lb. Wingstop digitally changed its name to “Thighstop,” and Popeyes began hoarding chicken. America was in the midst of a chicken crisis.

Our insight: Chicken lovers were paying a hefty premium and running out of options because of nationwide “Chickenflation.” What better moment to lure them with a delicious plant-based chik’n alternative?

??Chickenflation was an earned-media-led activation. Creative elements included a responsive digital NASDAQ OOH board in Times Square showing the price increase of chicken over time, a full-page Wall Street Journal print ad, street teams outside Popeyes intercepting consumers then they launched their highly anticipated chicken nuggets, mobile retargeting, paid search and CRM, and an owned landing page to track the increase in chicken prices/decrease in our prices while allowing people to cash in on the current price of our plant-based chicken. The campaign was launched on a national scale and came to life within three weeks of the project kickoff.

Chickenflation received more earned media attention than any other campaign in Alpha Foods’ history, far outmatching our investment. In total, the campaign landed 500MM+ total earned media impressions, The story got picked up by national media outlets, including Mic, Fast Company, and Fox Business, which even invited our CEO to comment on “Chickenflation.”

We saw an immediate impact on consideration, with a 7X increase in website traffic (100% of the increase in traffic came directly from Chickenflation.com) and a 98% increase in social mentions.

The campaign also successfully drove conversion. E-comm chik’n nugget sales were up 31% and 50% of the sales came from new consumers. Total Alpha sales got a boost too, with a 17.7% increase in the week following the activation.

Most importantly, we restored balance in the flock market and made plant-based chicken accessible to all chicken eaters