• by Steve Ellwanger , May 4, 2020

Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen and Liquid Death canned water—both with roots in the music scene—have launched campaigns to assist out-of-work musicians.

Last month, Popeyes began recruiting musicians in its jazz-oriented hometown of New Orleans—one of the hardest-hit U.S. cities—to play their adaptation of the chain’s “Love That Chicken” jingle. Today, Popeyes said it’s extending the initiative to musicians nationwide.

To publicize its New Orleans-focused effort, Popeyes used social media and a full-page ad in the local Times-Picayune newspaper. Musicians were invited to perform “Love That Chicken” in hopes they would be paid to appear in Popeyes commercials on radio and television.

A campaign video for the nationwide musician-assistance program starts with the question “No way to make money playing music these days?” before shifting to a montage of empty streets and dining venues in New Orleans’ French Quarter.

Musicians are then seen on a Zoom-like screen performing their rendition of “Love That Chicken.” 

Those who post their performances on social media using #LoveThatJingle” become eligible to be paid for performing in Popeyes commercials.

“The brand decided this movement should reach far beyond NOLA to support musicians and Popeyes fans across the country,” the company said in a statement.

Liquid Death co-founder Mike Cessario and his friends grew up playing in bands—hence the company’s new effort called Death Peddlers. It’s a profit-sharing program to help bands unable to perform because of the pandemic.

Bands that sign up and agree to promote Liquid Death by driving people to the company’s website receive a unique code. If a band is accepted, it receives half of the sales revenue related to its code in twice-monthly payments.

In addition, Liquid Death has just released its own music album on Spotify titled Greatest Hates," whose song titles and lyrics derive from actual hate comments about the brand people have posted on social media.

The “Greatest Hates” concept was born last fall, but Liquid Death decided to introduce it now to help people lighten up during COVID-19. In this video created by the agency Party Land, people are seen reacting angrily—and sometimes violently—to the water brand’s social media presence.

Produced and mastered by heavy metal musicians, songs on the 10-track album include “Fire Your Marketing Guy,” “Dumbest Name Ever For Water,” “Get Slaughtered On Shark Tank” and “Go Out Of Business.”

“In the midst of all of this craziness and COVID, we’re seeing people gravitating towards humor on social media. They’re trying to stay sane and make light of it,” Cessario tells Marketing Daily.

“There’s a bigger cultural thing that we’re tapping into. Everybody in the world feels like everything you do is being judged by other people. Our brand is saying ‘who cares if people hate what you’re doing.’ People are responding well to that."