Chicken ads tell 'horror' stories

Sanderson says its product pure, not watered down
By BARRY SHLACHTER
Fort Worth Star-telegram

A loud, eerie cackling pierces the night. A terrified camper runs through the woods, squeezing out the words: "Uh-oh. It's coming after me. A CHICKEN!"

Another camper adds: "I heard that a lot of the chicken you find in supermarkets has been tampered with, cracked up with extra salt and phosphates. What if they've gone too far?"

It's not a remake of a horror movie.

Rather, the action is part of a 30-second TV spot for a Mississippi-based chicken processor waging an aggressive campaign against industry rivals that sell chicken products with extra flavoring and water added through injection or tumble marination.

Sanderson Farms, the country's sixth-biggest processor, which has a large plant in Bryan, has made three chicken-horror TV ads that denounce additives in competitors' products while extolling its own "100 percent natural" broilers.

The $12 million campaign has also spawned radio spots featuring a tough-talking Mother Nature, who admonishes "big chicken companies" for messing with something that's so good: "Why do you think I made so many other animals taste like it?"

Then, there's the anti-adulteration Web site, at www.truthinchicken.com, which at first glance looks like it was created by a grass-roots pressure group, not Sanderson Farms.

And billboards in English and Spanish also carry the pitch.
"They add 'broth.' You pay for water," says one sign about competitors' broth-injected chicken.

The aim is to establish Sanderson Farms as a major contender in the highly competitive industry, said Bill Sanderson, 47, director of marketing and a grandson of the company's founder. It's the costliest marketing campaign ever mounted by the 57-year-old, Laurel, Miss.-based company, he said. The company, whose shares are traded on Nasdaq, sold $966 million worth of chicken products for the 12-month period ending April 30.