Thread by @vexedinthecity

Hey, black people. Ad guy here. Can y'all do me a solid and stop perpetuating the social media trope that we somehow gave Popeye's $25million in "free" advertising. That's not exactly accurate and it doesn't reflect the reality of how marketing communications work.

Let's start with the basics: There are three types of media a brand can leverage:
Paid- the shit they bought from someone else
Earned- the shit they get from PR/word if mouth
Owned- the channels they control (see: websites, blogs, youtube channels, and social feeds)

Now, while Popeye's paid media investment here may have been small (because Popeye's is a relatively smaller player in the QSR category), they probably knew they had a loyal following on social media that would get them more earned exposure (called: "impressions") online.

Relying on an earned media/impressions strategy is tricky because you're kinda banking on the people doing legwork for you. This could go either way; really good or really really bad. In this case, they gambled on the quality of their product and the loyalty of their customers.

But, back to that $25million number. The way we quantify the value of a marketing plan is through how many people within the target demo get exposed to the message. It's why Super Bowl ads are expensive. A lot of eyeballs all at the same time comes at a premium.

So when you see a number like $25million in "free" advertising floating around, it's inaccurate for several reasons:
1.) It doesn't reflect impressions based on target
2.) It doesn't take into account consumer sentiment
3.) It doesn't translate to sales.

It's just exposure.

While there's a case to be made about the broad reach of their marketing plan and how they leveraged earned media to push their message. It's not really fair to say they got anything for "free" because earned impressions don't cost money in the first place. You can't buy that.

Now, a more accurate conversation that could/should be had is about how black twitter is influencing how brands interact in the earned media space (which I'm willing to have with clients any day), but to try to quantify the impact is a bad idea and it'll lead to bad results.

I mean, there's a brand manager somewhere right now trying to figure out how he or she can make their product "go viral" with the power of black twitter and it's going to lead to some serious pandering and the opposite of the Popeye's effect as consumers shut them down.

But for now, take it for what it's worth that black folks were the engine behind one of the best PR/earned media plays I've seen in a while and we didn't give anything away. We just showed how we can define a market and influence culture. That's good.