Everything old is new again -- except the chicken -- as Chick-fil-A is celebrating its 80th anniversary with a nostalgia campaign of retro packaging, collectible cups, themed merchandise, and the chance to win free food for a year.
Facing slowed sales growth for the first time in over a decade -- at 5.4% in 2024 compared the usual double-digits -- the iconic purveyor of chicken is mixing it up.
Its anniversary campaign, centered around "newstalgia," aims to celebrate Chick-fil-A's heritage while attracting new customers in an era where higher prices and tighter paychecks have more Americans dining at home.
“We’ve thought about this as a way to celebrate our heritage with customers who’ve been with us, potentially for decades, for all 80 years, or whether they’ve been with us for eight days or have never tried Chick-fil-A before,” Khalilah Cooper, Chick-fil-A’s vice president of brand strategy, advertising and media, told CNBC.
Starting today and for the next year, look for new frosted sodas and floats on the menu, specialty limited-time menu items, retro collectible cups for $3.99, and highlighting "newstalgia" with packaging, including new wrappers on the chicken sandwiches.
And the collectible cups have an added incentive. As a riff on Willy Wonka’s famous golden ticket 3,000 customers who buy a collectible cup and receive the "Golden Fan Cup" win free Chick-fil-A for a year.