DQ Tender Truths
Chicken Challenge
Who doesn’t love flying chicken tenders? We’re fans of the crunchy yard bird strips and jumped at the chance to take flight with DQ’s Tender Truths campaign - especially because it brought an interesting twist (and not just from the 7 different sauces) .
The Loomis agency tapped our team with a creative post brief that was deceptively simple: one campaign, multiple distinct audiences. We were to cut two different broadcast ads, in two distinct styles for two different audiences in two different languages, all from the same source footage. …plus cutdowns and resizes for web and social.
Who were our chicken-loving audiences? One was comprised of the Gen Z and Millennial crowd, aka ‘Zillenials’, and the other was…. Well, let’s just say they were the ‘more experienced’ chicken tender eaters.
Two Styles, One Campaign
For the more experienced folks, the DQ spots leaned into what makes a great food ad great. Straight cuts. Sizzling beauty shots. Crispy tenders doing exactly what crispy tenders are supposed to do: looking golden, crunchy, and impossibly irresistible sitting in a basket. Just clean, confident offline editing that lets the product breathe and the appetite and DQ-jingle do the heavy lifting.
The Zillenial edits were a different flavor with faster pacing, punched-up transitions, and wild effects layered on top of a kinetic foundation. Creating this style without being obnoxiously over-top was a nuanced balance of experimentation and trust in our creative leads at Loomis. The end goal was earned attention in an environment where attention is a scarce resource.
Platform-Ready Deliverables
With the creative vision locked for both audiences, the campaign expanded into a matrix of formats and lengths. Each segment required customizations across broadcast, web, horizontal 16:9, vertical 9:16, and square 1:1 deliveries, in both English and Spanish.
Tender Truth
This campaign ultimately showed that a dialed-in workflow allows the exact same source material to serve two totally different audiences. Production efficiencies lead to expanded editorial outcomes in a campaign that hits multiple targets.
Same kitchen. Different recipes. Both delicious.
