Chick-Fil-A Is Now Producing Its Own Animated Series

Watch out, Netflix! The sometimes controversial chicken sandwich chain Chick-fil-A is launching a new entertainment app and streaming service Chick-fil-A Play on November 18.

The platform offers podcast, games, video-based recipes, e-books, and most importantly (at least to us) original animated series. The platform’s tentpole series at launch will be Legends of Evergreen Hills, a fantasy series about a girl whose apprenticeship with the Time Keeper introduces her to a universe where kindness creates a resource called Spark, that is sought after by both good and evil forces.

The project started as a series of two-minute shorts on Youtube, before Chick-fil-A turned it into a ten-minute short called The Spark Tree, which scored over 141 million views on Youtube. That short was produced by Bento Box Atlanta with animation by Ireland’s Giant Animation.

The Chick-fil-A Play app will offer five new 22-minute episodes of Evergreen Hills, with an original episode launching weekly through the holidays.

The new app will also feature a couple shorts that star Chick-fil-A’s cow mascots. These shorts, which are already online, were produced by Norwegian studio Saurus Animation and the U.K.’s Blinkink, with Bento Box Atlanta again producing.

Chick-fil-A’s move into producing entertainment is not as outlandish as it may appear as first. As younger generations have tuned out of traditional advertising like commercials, corporations have moved to integrate themselves more deeply into the entertainment ecosystem. Companies like Nike, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, and Starbucks are in the early stages of creating long-form entertainment content, much like toy companies Mattel, The Lego Group, and Hasbro already create films based on their products. Even Claire’s, a jewelry and hair accessories retailer, has teamed with Sony Pictures Television’s kids division to create kids series.

The key distinction between these companies and Chick-fil-A is that the fast food chain will be self-distributing its content, whereas the other companies are working with film & tv studios and streamers to distribute their branded content.

Chick-fil-A’s Khalilah Cooper, vice president of brand strategy, advertising, and media, recently told Fast Company that the app will be a source of “safe and trusted” family entertainment, which she added is becoming “harder and harder” to find.

Another Chick-fil-A exec Dustin Britt, added, “Content and games sit very adjacent to mealtime. If you want to watch or play something, you may be doing it during a meal. Sometimes you’re doing it on the way to the meal. Sometimes you’re doing it while you’re making a meal.”