Church's Loves Communities
The war of the chicken restaurant will never end. Chick-fil-A or Popeyes? Popeyes or KFC? And where does that leave Church’s Chicken? The one thing Church’s has over all of these restaurants is an unashamed love and championing spirit for their communities. As more and more food brands position themselves to serve the increasingly gentrified cities in this country, Church’s owns its positions in low-income neighborhoods. And because of that, they have a connection with their communities that no one else can boast. So I created a documentary series to showcase that.
The Brief
Leading up to the 2016 GRAMMY Awards, the Church’s marketing team approached us to help capitalize on a couple of name drops from Kendrick Lamar, who had a whopping 11 nominations that year. So I crafted a brief for a collection of content and short documentary that would take us to the Church’s Chicken location “in front of Lueders” that was referenced in “Backseat Freestyle” and use it as a backdrop to talk to the community about Kendrick’s impact. We called it “Compton Loves Kendrick”.
On my way to Compton, (literally, on the plane on my way to LAX) I was told that we had not secured the rights to include anything about Kendrick Lamar, not even mention his name. Luckily for us, this idea never hinged on Kendrick, rather the community that he loved and loved him back. Additionally, the popularity of the Straight Outta Compton movie that was released the year before still raged on. This, plus the historic GRAMMY buzz around Mr. Lamar, had Compton at the forefront of everyone’s minds. So after a small re-write, Church’s Loves Compton – and subsequently Communities – was born.
We gathered the content during the week leading up to the GRAMMYs – visiting landmarks and interviewing natives such as the President of the Compton Unified School District, and the Mayor Pro Tem of the city of Compton, and even attending Kendrick Lamar’s Key to the City of Compton ceremony.
We tweeted short teasers throughout the week, and built anticipation for our final video launch by tweeting video teasers that aligned with Kendrick Lamar performances and Grammy wins. Here’s a few:
Compton and Beyond
What was meant to be a one-off started to turn into somewhat of a banner story for the brand. The next story the brand team wanted us to tell was about Church's birthplace of San Antonio, TX to commemorate its 64th birthday.
Like Compton, I wanted to find an authentic way into this community that gave Church’s a natural role. So this time we tackled the tough subject of immigration, as San Antonio has the largest Hispanic community of any city in the U.S. But we didn’t want to profile an array of different interview subjects and opinions, ultimately making this a piece about the perceived rights and wrongs of immigration – so we sought to give this a personal touch. The “Church’s Loves San Antonio” short documentary details the topics of immigration, family, work ethic and Mexican-American culture through the lens of a 19 year old Church’s cashier living in the greater San Antonio area.
What made this series special was the willingness for Church’s to own the places that no one else wanted to. We got to go into real communities and tell real stories because that’s where Church’s restaurants actually are. At the time in mid-2016, nothing was more real than the conversation around police brutality in America. So we went to Ferguson, Missouri on the two year anniversary of the passing of Michael Brown, and the subsequent riots, in which there was one Church’s franchise that remained untouched.
The Vimeo Staff Pick Director’s Cut of this doc actually made it into the 2016 St. Louis Film Festival.
The series ended on a high note as we returned to our hometown of Atlanta. We covered the rich history of Atlanta that its gatekeepers struggle to hold onto and preserve in the face of rapid growth. This Director’s Cut received another Vimeo Staff Pick and an official selection from the Atlanta Film Festival.
Role: Creator & Agency Producer
Director: Andrew Litten
DP: Krystian Zuniga (San Antonio, St. Louis, Atlanta) & Jason Hernandez (Compton)
Campaign Strategy: Phyllis McElroy
Agency: BFG
Production Company: Tre Native
