Wingstop is stepping into a new era—one shaped not just by rapid expansion, but by a desire to cement its place in American culture.
With the debut of its new brand platform and tagline, “Wingstop Is Here,” the fast-growing chain is making its boldest marketing statement yet. Created in partnership with VaynerMedia, the campaign leans into the anticipation Wingstop customers feel when the bag hits the kitchen table, and the way its wings transform an ordinary night into “the moment.”
QSR magazine spoke with chief revenue officer Mark Christenson about the strategy behind the campaign, how the brand is managing explosive growth, and what “Wingstop Is Here” means for both passionate loyalists and the many new guests it hopes to win over.
What was it about Wingstop or where it’s going that had you arrive at this particular marketing campaign?
I think in one word it’s about growth. So I think the reason that we started working on this new platform is Wingstop has started out as a cult brand and it became iconic with a certain group of consumers. It was built on social media, but we keep growing. I think that we were talking about it even [November 4], 369 net new units opened this year. Hopefully we’ll get over 400, expanding into new markets all over the world but also in the U.S. So as we thought about that, how do we pivot the brand from a cult-favorite to a cultural mainstay? So where we are in that growth curve, how do you invite everyone into Wingstop while not changing anything about what made us great?
How does “Wingstop Is Here” build on or evolve from your previous marketing approach? In what ways does it reflect how the brand — and its fandom — have grown over the years?
I think one of the interesting things for me is we have an incredibly passionate core group of fans—guests who love our brand. The flip side of that is we have a lot of people who don’t know what Wingstop is. So like our previous kind of campaign—Bring the Flavor—it assumed you knew something about Wingstop. So now what we’re doing is we’re trying to both tell our core guests, remember what makes us great and why you love us, but also kind of expose to all the people who don’t know Wingstop. We have a pretty significant gap in awareness and consideration relative to huge QSR brands, so we want to talk to those people who don’t know our brand as well and make sure that they have an introduction to what Wingstop is and what is the emotional connection and high-quality food that we offer. That’s why in the current spot, we talk a little bit about the brand story, the 30 years, some of the first people who worked there, how it evolved through social, but then we throw on there we’re the number one wings restaurant in the U.S., which even when I tell relatives, they’re like, ‘What, are you really?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, we are.’ We sell more wings than anyone, and I think that kind of credential, I think for someone who doesn’t know the brand and has never been to Wingstop, is really our way to start, ‘Hey, we invite you in.’
The campaign focuses on Wingstop turning “any old occasion into the moment.” Can you talk about what that means strategically?
I think the goal, at least to me, as long as I’ve worked in advertising, is to create an emotional connection with the consumer. And obviously we spent a lot of time thinking about this. We looked at lots of different ideas, but the tagline ‘Wingstop is Here,’ does a bunch of things for us. One of the things that I love is millions of people say it every day anyway. And what happens often—because so much of our business is delivered or is picked up—somebody brings it into the house, brings it into the kitchen, in the living room, and literally holds up the bag and says ‘Wingstop is here.’ The way they do that, that anticipation of that order arriving because they know the food’s going to be delicious, the flavors are going to be unique and great, we wanted to capture a little bit of that anticipation. We also think the deeper double click into that is people know that when they order Wingstop, it’s a differentiated night. And I’ve heard hundreds of stories from our guests about this, about how they use it almost to create a special occasion, and it can be as simple as one story I heard in Chicago, two brothers live on opposite sides of the city. Once a month they get together to watch boxing. And they always order Wingstop, and it’s like this 1 + 1 + 1 equals 5. So I’m with my brother watching boxing and then Wingstop. So that occasion becomes a really special moment. And so we want to reflect those moments back to people who already know that moment, but also show new people like, hey, it’ll change your night. It’ll be a different thing than what you would have had for dinner.
The campaign highlights Wingstop’s presence across culture — from family dinners to viral social videos. How does the brand identify and decide which cultural touchpoints to lean into?
The way we built the brand is moments of culture, sports, fashion—different ways we’ve gone, and I think we’ll keep doing that. What we want to work on too is showing that it’s more than just an occasion. The stereotype for wings is like, well, I get them for the Super Bowl. Well, we want to increase frequency so there’s a lot of occasions. Those can be you and a friend watching Netflix on Tuesday night. They can be, of course, a football game or a basketball game, but we think there’s lots more moments within our demand space that we have a right to win, and we really serve the guests in a way that’s unique. So sticking to what made the brand great and the moments and the culture that we’re famous for, but also expanding that and opening people’s eyes to there’s a lot of other times you go to a Wingstop. It’s not just during a football game.
Wingstop fans are famously passionate and vocal online. How did that community inspire or influence the tone and creative direction of this campaign?
One of the things we worked hard to do is reflect a little bit about that cult fan back to them. So early in the [TV] spot, you can see some of the imagery is taken direct from social media. And so that’s where this brand was built, and that’s where we really got our start with those passionate fans. So there’s even like an image in there of a Wingstop bag with a seatbelt on it inside a car. There’s also an image there of some of our celebrities who love our brand as well. So Dylan Harper, the NBA rookie is in there. We also have Faith Ward, Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. Before we ever worked with her, to my awareness, she had already reviewed the Wingstop that opened in Sydney, Australia, and we watched that and we’re like, well, she’s in our hometown. Maybe we should talk to her. And that video she had done on her own, so you can see her in there. So we’re trying to reflect back that core guest and people like Dylan Harper and Faith Ward are those core guests that have been with us the whole journey. Then as the ad progresses, we start to show different occasions and different people who may not follow us on social media, but we want to show them you’re part of this too.
“Wingstop Is Here” launches across TV, OTT, and social. How does the message adapt across different channels, and what’s the strategy for ensuring cultural consistency everywhere it appears?
We are launching across all channels. We’re obviously working to make sure that it resonates everywhere with everyone. The thing I love about this campaign though is the core won’t change. So the tagline ‘Wingstop is Here,’ you’ll see that everywhere, and our job is to take that tagline and make it emotional. And one of my old bosses always used to say great campaigns are made and not born. And so what we need to do is we need to continue to go back to the heart of the campaign, which is when Wingstop arrives, the occasion becomes the moment. And that should be reflected on every single channel and in all of our communication. And like campaigns do, it will take time to build that, but we’re confident that that message will resonate with our guests—both the ones we already serve today, but also all those new guests who drove by the brand new Wingstop in their suburb and said, ‘Wait a minute, what’s Wingstop?’ Hopefully we can convey our brand swagger and what makes us unique, but we’ll do it across all platforms.
How will you measure the impact of this new brand platform — both in marketing terms and in business outcomes? Are there specific behaviors, engagement metrics, or brand perception shifts you’ll be tracking?
I think at the highest and simplest level—does it resonate with our core guests? So we want to make sure we’re not alienating anybody in our core, but then also does it bring in new guests? Does it help them understand our brand and our offering and the value we provide, the quality, the abundance. So what we’ll measure over time is how effective are we in bringing in new guests while retaining our current guests. My wish for it—and great campaigns that I’ve worked on before sometimes run for decades—so what we want to really get to is how do we build that decade-long consistency that enables us to start seeing these trends play out. This is a single ad at the start, but you’ll see over time it starts to impact everything from our packaging to in-store to those things. But the first thing we did was the 30-second anthem spot, and we called it ‘anthem’ for a reason. It’s defining the direction we’re going. It’s supposed to obviously bring in new guests and communicate, ‘sell more Wingstop,’ but it’s part of a big long journey we’re going on where over time people will associate it with an emotional occasion and an understanding of Wingstop is. I really personally, of course incredibly biased, but the fact that it has our brand name in the tagline is a big win because every time we repeat it, every place we put it, we’re repeating our brand name and making it ever more gaining awareness. Because we have a huge gap relative to other peer companies on awareness, so we want to keep building awareness of Wingstop.
At its heart, what do you hope people feel when they see or hear “Wingstop Is Here”? What do you want this campaign to say about where Wingstop stands in American culture today?
I really think it’s what I talked about before, which is that moment of anticipation of the night—the night or the day or anytime—just got better, and that really resonated with me because I’ve heard a number of consumers just say, ‘Yeah, I come home, Wingstop’s here.’ The kids stop doing what they’re doing, run to the table, and you can have a moment, an emotional moment, with your family. You can be watching a game, can be watching a show, but what I really hope to lock into people’s minds is Wingstop changes the occasion into a moment. And then that’s what our job is—to build that emotional connection between the campaign and the guest.
