Post #2: Was Annie Effective?

After looking at the many advertisements from Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen that involved Annie the Chicken Queen, I decided that it was very effective. As racially insensitive as the new spokesperson was, she was a very good at her job. The advertisements all made me want to buy some chicken, biscuits, or whatever else she was selling. Perhaps it's because the stereotype of a "mammy" figure like Annie suggests good food in my mind. Perhaps, like when people in the past thought of Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima, I just expect good food to come from a kitchen that had a black woman in an apron working in it.

In order to support this outrageous claim, though, I decided that some true numbers were probably in order. After some research, I found that in 2012, about 3 years after Annie was introduced as the spokesperson for Popeyes, the sales for the company increased by 14.4% from the previous year, meaning there was likely even more increase in sales than this in the 3 years after Annie began her career. Of course, Annie was probably not the only reason for the increase in sales in those 3 years. Considering the financial disaster around 2008, it's not a surprise that sales of fried chicken grew.

It's more of an inferior good, for those people who understand economic terms, which means that as people have more money, they tend to buy fried chicken less often. With the great decrease in many people's income after the disaster, it's likely that those people began to purchase fried chicken more often.

Anyway, economics aside, there was definitely a positive financial effect on the company thanks to the addition of Annie as a spokesperson. That increase in sales can't all have come from the financial catastrophe, so Annie was a very effective. The only drawback of adding her as the spokesperson was that she is still a very offensive spokesperson and the ad campaign that she is involved with isn't any better. By being portrayed as a "mammy" archetype, she fits stereotypes created in people's minds and reverts back to a time when it was okay to be racist and African American women were actually slaves.

A nice change that could occur is to get rid of Annie and focus more on the chicken, the flavor, or even the situations that the chicken could be consumed. Perhaps, if Annie still needs to be there as the spokesperson, focus more on images of the food and allow her to speak without an accent. By doing these things, the ad campaign would be less offensive while still, likely, being as effective as they were when Annie was a racist character.

Blog #1: Annie the Chicken Queen

For this first assignment, I decided to focus on "Annie the Chicken Queen" from the commercials for Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen. Annie is currently played by Deidrie Henry, a black woman who seems to be full of energy in every commercial she is in. Before I even begin to describe her, though, here's a commercial where she is behind the position of the conductor of a church choir:

Annie seems to be the nicest lady, doesn't she? She has the southern accent, the apron with her name tag stuck on the front, and a warm smile that would entice any viewer to want to purchase this chicken. She is dressed and plays the part that seems perfect for selling fried chicken. This brings up some food for thought, "Is Annie really that great at making food, or is that some sort of stereotype that we have established in our minds over time?" Perhaps there is more to Annie than just an image of warmth... Looking at her, people might start to think of characters like Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, characters who were initially created with the intent that people would buy pancake mix and rice on the premise that happy, black slaves created the products.

This isn't just a random accusation, it truly seems like Annie is being portrayed in a way that is similar to Jemima. In fact, even though this commercial hasn't gone so far as to name her Aunt Annie, she isn't even given a proper surname. She is just Annie, not Ms. Something, just plain Annie. The intent, of course, seems to be to create a sense of trust so that people would want to purchase the chicken, but it just seems a bit racist to use Annie to sell the fried chicken when there are less offensive alternatives.

Pseudopost

The quick, brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.