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Megan Thee Stallion’s Hottie Sauce has officially hit Popeyes in Canada.
The meeting of Stallion and the Louisiana Kitchen comes amidst the shift in Fast Food marketing to encompass pop music over film franchise IP, which was characteristic of the 90s. Hottie Sauce comes to a 2021 that saw fast food collaborations with Lil Nas X & Taco Bell and a series of McDonalds takeovers that added BTS, J Balvin, and Saweetie to an already stacked roster for the market leader.
Megan Thee Stallion, who announced her cosigned “Hottie Sauce” for the fried chicken giant just five days ago, is joining aboard a continuing brand expansion for Popeyes that has included meals with Migos and a multitude of high celebrity endorsements for their market disrupting chicken sandwich.
The arrival of the Hottie Sauce, its three packs full enough to spill after peeling their seals and provide a volume overshooting any quantity required for just eight nuggets or one sandwich, lands not only with three lines of branded clothing merch, but a five-unit franchise development deal between Meg and Popeyes, an establishment she considers a supporter of African American women. The Hottie Sauce also represents an additional opportunity in the saturated market of cross promotion… its product was reportedly produced customarily for its star.
The standard for fast food has largely shifted from branded figurines, meals, and oddity merchandise from film property from Jurassic Park and Disney to the current model of existing menu fare regrouped in already orderable permutations and cosigned by a pop superstar, a proven strategy that has been pulling in massive returns with little done in line of product development. According to a survey by celebrity branding research firm Pipslay, 54% of Americans have bought BTS or Travis Scott meals from McDonald’s. Consider for example the Cactus Jack meal: a quarter pounder with lettuce and bacon, fries with barbeque sauce, and Sprite with extra ice, Travis Scott’s modified order when entering the House of the Golden Arches.
Stallion’s Hottie Sauce is promoted as a “blend of honey, cider vinegar, and Aleppo pepper” and available as an accompaniment with nuggets or a chicken sandwich beginning today [Oct 19] outside of the States. The packaging aesthetic seems influenced by blaxploitation films like Car Wash perhaps a month or two late from summer, though despite its announcement of a potentially very long-term partnership, the incredibly photogenic Stallion or her hugely quotable verse remain absent from all product packaging and most marketing materials.
So how’s the sauce? Not good enough.
The Hottie Sauce sits in a tier of pre-bought restaurant sauce – often stock labelled as sweet chili, sold through a large-scale wholesaler, and good enough for faux fusion restaurants like PF Chang’s even, but would be laughed out of any proper establishment. So why isn’t it good enough for something as laissez faire as Popeyes? It’s not a question of the Hottie Sauce’s general approval rating as a sauce, though as a branding tool, it seems like a missed opportunity.
Adding to the product line of the self-proclaimed Savage, which consists of little but otherwise strongly branded merch and music, the Hottie Sauce should be spicy enough that it’s fun to eat, since its loyalty will ensure its movement. There’s nothing unique about this sauce, between its colour and consistency to its flavour. It tastes and drips like every sweet n’ sour dippable on the QSR market; it’s gelatinous, glowing, and a chocolatey red hue, attractive but lacking differentiation. The Hottie Sauce is more reminiscent of an Asian-prepared sauce than anything deep down in the heart of Texas (Stallion’s stomping ground) with an apparent use of corn starch and specks of chili and garlic immersed throughout. It’s full of MSG, a standard flavouring which leads to a feeling of cheap dehydration and also considers another variable… The Hottie Sauce is extremely sweet and lacks flavoural complexity. It smells of garlic, but its faux sweetness, something akin to (or actually just) synthetic honey, is too overwhelming too allow for any character to come from the sauce. Megan Thee Stallion is red hot, this is just sauce…
Also Popeyes, that’s not a nugget: ground chicken set into a shape and then breaded with a crust. These are literally odd cuts of breast that Popeyes are repurposing in their seasoned drudge before conventional frying methods, more like a large popcorn chicken bite. Gobble Me or Swallow Me, that’s not a nugget.
Megan Thee Stallion’s Hottie Sauce has officially hit Popeyes in Canada.
The meeting of Stallion and the Louisiana Kitchen comes amidst the shift in Fast Food marketing to encompass pop music over film franchise IP, which was characteristic of the 90s. Hottie Sauce comes to a 2021 that saw fast food collaborations with Lil Nas X & Taco Bell and a series of McDonalds takeovers that added BTS, J Balvin, and Saweetie to an already stacked roster for the market leader.
Megan Thee Stallion, who announced her cosigned “Hottie Sauce” for the fried chicken giant just five days ago, is joining aboard a continuing brand expansion for Popeyes that has included meals with Migos and a multitude of high celebrity endorsements for their market disrupting chicken sandwich.
The arrival of the Hottie Sauce, its three packs full enough to spill after peeling their seals and provide a volume overshooting any quantity required for just eight nuggets or one sandwich, lands not only with three lines of branded clothing merch, but a five-unit franchise development deal between Meg and Popeyes, an establishment she considers a supporter of African American women. The Hottie Sauce also represents an additional opportunity in the saturated market of cross promotion… its product was reportedly produced customarily for its star.
The standard for fast food has largely shifted from branded figurines, meals, and oddity merchandise from film property from Jurassic Park and Disney to the current model of existing menu fare regrouped in already orderable permutations and cosigned by a pop superstar, a proven strategy that has been pulling in massive returns with little done in line of product development. According to a survey by celebrity branding research firm Pipslay, 54% of Americans have bought BTS or Travis Scott meals from McDonald’s. Consider for example the Cactus Jack meal: a quarter pounder with lettuce and bacon, fries with barbeque sauce, and Sprite with extra ice, Travis Scott’s modified order when entering the House of the Golden Arches.
Stallion’s Hottie Sauce is promoted as a “blend of honey, cider vinegar, and Aleppo pepper” and available as an accompaniment with nuggets or a chicken sandwich beginning today [Oct 19] outside of the States. The packaging aesthetic seems influenced by blaxploitation films like Car Wash perhaps a month or two late from summer, though despite its announcement of a potentially very long-term partnership, the incredibly photogenic Stallion or her hugely quotable verse remain absent from all product packaging and most marketing materials.
So how’s the sauce? Not good enough.
The Hottie Sauce sits in a tier of pre-bought restaurant sauce – often stock labelled as sweet chili, sold through a large-scale wholesaler, and good enough for faux fusion restaurants like PF Chang’s even, but would be laughed out of any proper establishment. So why isn’t it good enough for something as laissez faire as Popeyes? It’s not a question of the Hottie Sauce’s general approval rating as a sauce, though as a branding tool, it seems like a missed opportunity.
Adding to the product line of the self-proclaimed Savage, which consists of little but otherwise strongly branded merch and music, the Hottie Sauce should be spicy enough that it’s fun to eat, since its loyalty will ensure its movement. There’s nothing unique about this sauce, between its colour and consistency to its flavour. It tastes and drips like every sweet n’ sour dippable on the QSR market; it’s gelatinous, glowing, and a chocolatey red hue, attractive but lacking differentiation. The Hottie Sauce is more reminiscent of an Asian-prepared sauce than anything deep down in the heart of Texas (Stallion’s stomping ground) with an apparent use of corn starch and specks of chili and garlic immersed throughout. It’s full of MSG, a standard flavouring which leads to a feeling of cheap dehydration and also considers another variable… The Hottie Sauce is extremely sweet and lacks flavoural complexity. It smells of garlic, but its faux sweetness, something akin to (or actually just) synthetic honey, is too overwhelming too allow for any character to come from the sauce. Megan Thee Stallion is red hot, this is just sauce…
Also Popeyes, that’s not a nugget: ground chicken set into a shape and then breaded with a crust. These are literally odd cuts of breast that Popeyes are repurposing in their seasoned drudge before conventional frying methods, more like a large popcorn chicken bite. Gobble Me or Swallow Me, that’s not a nugget.
