Maglio points out that every ad ends with that sting of “love that chicken from Popeyes” with “Popeyes, Louisiana kitchen” displayed on the screen. “What we’re trying to do is give it much more meaning again and have it be a repeatable construct and pound that into people’s heads.”

By focusing on the more involved process Popeyes goes through to prepare its food, Maglio said it will help differentiate Popeyes from its QSR competitors “where your food is basically sitting there and there’s kind of throw in a bag and hand it to you.” And that differentiation should help consumers accept slightly longer wait times for their food.

“Our first work together will pay homage to our roots in a unique and purposeful way and we’re looking forward to unveiling that campaign this spring.”

Redefining conflict

The ad agency business has long viewed conflicts at the extreme end of the spectrum as brands will often not allow agencies to have multiple clients that are tangentially related in category or competition.

For McKinney, it now holds two QSR restaurants as clients—Little Caesers and Popeyes—but the agency explained how it assured both clients that there wouldn’t be any conflicts within the shop.

“We committed to separate teams in a really transparent way,” Maglio said, explaining McKinney laid out who would work on each account to ensure no overlap. He added that the brands shared a common viewpoint that they want McKinney to succeed because they benefit with better talent working on their brands. As long as each brand is “getting the right people at the right level of attention,” Klein was good with it, Maglio said.

Maglio, who sits on the board of the 4A’s, adds the industry has a chance to redefine what a conflict is. While Maglio acknowledges some conflicts are legitimate in the context of trade secrets—think Pepsi and Coke—there are plenty of opportunities where agencies get conflicted out from a brand where there is no overlap in consumer, but the brands live in the same category.

“In retail, a lot of the contracts that we see are still ‘well, you can’t do that because you’re doing this’ and it’s like, but nobody will ever walk into both of those stores, if the two brands have different geographic footprints,” Maglio said.