• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, March 31, 2015

To promote its latest limited-time menu offering, Red Stick Chicken, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen and the Mithun agency have created a funky app called "The Red Stick Staredown, A Game of Chicken."

The free mobile app, which includes specially designed facial recognition technology typically available only in a desktop experience, enables a chicken (rooster, actually) to challenge players to a staring contest and try to get them to flinch by distracting them. The longer players hold the star, the more virtual “perfect peppers” they collect.

The campaign for the Red Stick Chicken (breaded chicken tenderloins marinated in a cayenne and Tabasco pepper marinade) includes a new 30-second TV spot starring the brand's "Annie" character, and a Web site featuring the app and the TV spot. 

The app, a first for Popeyes, available for iOS and Android platforms, is a first for Popeyes, and reflects a new, multiplatform marketing direction being made possible by the chain's rapidly growth in locations and revenue, VP, CMO Hector Munoz told Nation's Restaurant News.

The chain now has nearly 2,400 units worldwide, and plans to double its approximately 1,870 U.S. locations over the next few years, reports the trade publication.

In a still-challenging environment for QSRs and other restaurants, Popeyes' U.S. same-store sales growth has outpaced the chicken-QSR and entire QSR categories for six consecutive years, according to its Q4 and fiscal year report. Its domestic share of the chicken-QSR segment reached 23.2% in 2014, up from 20.8% in 2013.