Covert Cows and Chick-fil-A: How Faith, Cows, and Chicken Built an Iconic Brand

By Steve Robinson

The longtime chief marketing officer for Chick-fil-A tells the inside story of how the company turned prevailing theories of fast-food marketing upside down and built one of the most successful and beloved brands in America.

Covert Cows will help you… 

• Discover unexpected, out-of-the-box marketing methods and new ways of approaching business problems.
• Understand the positive impact of building a business based on biblical principles.
• Receive an insider’s look at the evolution of one of America’s most beloved brands.
• Learn key marketing and business insights from the man who was the chief marketing officer for Chick-fil-A for thirty-four years.

During his thirty-four-year tenure at Chick-fil-A, Steve Robinson was integrally involved in the company’s growth--from 184 stores and $100 million in annual sales in 1981 to over 2,100 stores and over $6.8 billion in annual sales in 2015--and was a first-hand witness to its evolution as an indelible global brand. In Covert Cows and Chick-fil-A, Robinson shares behind-the-scenes accounts of key moments, including the creation of the Chick-fil-A corporate purpose and the formation and management of the now-iconic "Eat Mor Chikin" cow campaign. 

Drawing on his personal interactions with the gifted team of company leaders, restaurant operators, and the company's founder, Truett Cathy, Robinson explains the important traits that built the company's culture and sustained it through recession and many other challenges. He also reveals how every aspect of the company's approach reflects an unwavering dedication to Christian values and to the individual customer experience. Written with disarming candor and revealing storytelling, Covert Cows and Chick-fil-A is the never-before-told story of a great American success.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781400213191

Steve Robinson

Steve Robinson drew upon his own family history for inspiration when he imagined the life and quest of his genealogist hero, Jefferson Tayte. The talented London-based crime writer, who was first published at age sixteen, always wondered about his own maternal grandfather. “He was an American GI billeted in England during the Second World War,” Robinson says. “A few years after the war ended he went back to America, leaving a young family behind, and, to my knowledge, no further contact was made. I traced him to Los Angeles through his 1943 enlistment record and discovered that he was born in Arkansas…” Robinson cites crime-writing and genealogy amongst his hobbies—a passion that is readily apparent in his work. He can be contacted via his website, www.steve-robinson.me, his blog at steverobinsonauthor.blogspot.com, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SteveRobinsonAuthor.

Book preview

Introduction

Truett Cathy stood beside me on the sideline of the Georgia Dome with seventy-two thousand cheering college football fans surrounding us. For sixteen straight years, Truett, founder of Chick-fil-A, had stood on that field just before kickoff while plush Cows parachuted from the rafters, an inflatable Cow guided a blimp with an Eat Mor Chikin sign inside the dome, and often, his son Dan played the national anthem on his trumpet. The Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl had become something of a family affair, with fans, Cows, players, and coaches all together in the dome for a few hours of fun and football.

This game, December 31, 2012, was different. Truett was ninety-one years old, and I didn’t know how many more bowl or Chick-fil-A Kickoff Games he might participate in. Also, we were deeply engaged in negotiations for Atlanta to be chosen as one of the host cities for the College Football Playoff (CFP) beginning after the 2014 season.

If Atlanta were to be selected, then the Chick-fil-A Bowl would host a CFP semifinal game every three years and two top-twenty teams in the other years. The National Championship game would also be in the mix for Atlanta. Chick-fil-A, including the Cows and our food, would become part of the experience for fans attending all seven of the CFP games, and our ads would be in heavy rotation on all seven of the national telecasts, introducing those renegade Cows to legions of new fans. Truett and I stood on the sideline and on the cusp of something altogether different and new for the Chick-fil-A brand.

I spoke loudly so he could hear me over the noise of the crowd. Truett, your decision sixteen years ago made this possible, I said. He looked up, and I reminded him of the day when the Chick-fil-A executive committee was deadlocked on whether the company should become the first title sponsor of the Peach Bowl. Truett cast the deciding vote in favor and opened the door to marketing opportunities and partnerships with college football that catapulted Chick-fil-A to national brand status. In the intervening years, the number of stores had almost tripled to 1,683 (in 2012), and system-wide annual sales had grown eightfold to more than $4.6 billion.

We got a signal from the officials, and Truett walked out to the fifty-yard line for the coin toss with the captains from Clemson and LSU. He and I loved that moment, especially the energy of the cheering crowd while he stood among those huge college football players. Looking up at the tens of thousands in the stands, we both appreciated the impact and scale of the chain he had started forty-five years earlier. The customers visiting Chick-fil-A restaurants on a single day across the country could fill more than thirty Georgia Domes. But Truett didn’t spend his time thinking about sales volume and customers in the aggregate. Big numbers didn’t impress him. They were nothing but a scorecard, never his why. He was more interested in the individual encounter—one customer face-to-face with one restaurant Operator or team member. For thirty-one years I watched Truett make thousands of those one-to-one connections. And believe me, I was one of them.

My role, as chief marketing officer and executive vice president at Chick-fil-A, was to provide the tools and the strategic architecture to build the Chick-fil-A brand. Truett provided the heart. I saw from my first day on the job that Truett had instincts, wisdom, and the grace for branding beyond anything I had seen or could imagine. Especially grace.

Nobody knew better than Truett that grace is the Chick-fil-A brand. We might attract new customers every day through marketing and advertising, but he insisted we maintain those relationships through grace that can take many forms in a fast-food restaurant: a friendly smile, eye contact, a personal connection, genuine interest in every person. He not only insisted on it, but he modeled and created a culture of grace.

If his business demonstrated grace and graciousness, then maybe in the process, people would discover the truth of what he believed. But he was not going to lead with his faith. He reminded us, Chick-fil-A is not a church or a ministry: I’m not going to put scripture on packaging or on the bottom of cups. We’re not going to put evangelical material in our restaurants. I want people to discover what we believe because of how we treat them. Jesus didn’t say, ‘I expect you to be a bullhorn.’ He said, ‘I expect you to be salt. I expect you to be light.’

Being closed on Sundays was the most overt pronouncement Truett would make. When he stood in front of audiences and said, I have never seen a conflict between biblical principles and good business practice, he was attempting to live out grace and truth—and grace came before truth. Through his business and his life, he wanted healthy relationships where he could influence a few hundred teenagers, eventually a few thousand campers every year, and then tens of thousands of young team members in restaurants. Those were opportunities he probably never dreamed would happen.

I saw alignment in his commitment and my desire for my spiritual walk. I saw hope for me to have a career where I would not be in conflict, theologically or in principle, with the man I was working for. Hope, in an environment where I could live out my biblical values. Where my career was not just a job but a platform to serve others and to serve Christ, not as an evangelist or a preacher or a teacher, but as a businessman attempting to live out the gospel of grace and truth.

Chick-fil-A is built on biblical values and principles that were fundamentally rooted in its founder and that play out through a business that serves and values people and tries to honor all. In 1946, Truett created this environment at his Dwarf Grill, and he carried it into Chick-fil-A restaurants and even to Chick-fil-A events.

Culture is the fertile ground that helps to grow a brand. A strong, clear, and understood culture sets up the growth of a great brand. A weak, unclear culture will always lead to a weak brand. Stated another way, a culture that is endearing to associates and customers results in an endearing and enduring brand. Conversely, a culture that is unsure of its emotional vision and values will never yield an endearing and enduring brand.

Early in my career, working with Texas Instruments, Six Flags Over Georgia, and Chick-fil-A, I operated in the paradigm that the most important things affecting my success in serving my employer were smart and innovative marketing, brand strategies, and programs. I was consumed by this dominant and hard-driving premise. And sure enough, those things were important and played major roles in the success I enjoyed. With time, however, I discovered something that could complement or even trump ideas and execution: the culture of the business.

The dominant strategies and initiatives that have helped to make Chick-fil-A what and who it is today grew out of the culture established by Truett Cathy and are described by its brand essence: Where good meets gracious.

With this book I hope to honor God’s favor not only on my life and my career but on Chick-fil-A as well. This is a story that none of us could have dreamed or orchestrated in our own strength or wisdom. At times, it was like an out-of-body experience, watching the events unfold.

I am so grateful for the privilege to have served Chick-fil-A, its Operators (restaurant franchisees), and Truett in a culture that proved to be fertile soil for growing a great brand. Along that journey, I discovered it was fertile soil not only for my professional growth but also my personal and spiritual growth.

This book is my story of that discovery and journey.

ONE

The Formation of a Brand

Great brands grow from great cultures, and as chief marketing officer at Chick-fil-A for almost thirty-five years, I was indeed operating in great cultural soil.

Truett Cathy had a sincere desire to honor God and have a positive influence on every person he came in contact with. Before the product and profits came relationships with people and with God. When Truett felt he had a biblical insight on an issue, whether it related to people or money or leadership, he tried to humbly and quietly apply that insight. Prudence. Patience. Hard work. Love. Forgiveness. Generosity. These values served Chick-fil-A well.

The year he passed away, 2014, the chain had grown to 1,887 restaurants with $5.7 billion in sales. In the subsequent two years, sales grew by another billion dollars per year, and the culture he created allowed people to continue to thrive. Today, nearly one hundred thousand people work throughout the Chick-fil-A chain, serving more than 3 million customers every day, or 1.1 billion per year. Its tremendous popularity is evident when a new store opens: people camp outside the night before to be among the first one hundred customers of a new restaurant because those customers receive free Chick-fil-A for a year.

Through the years, the leadership team established guiding principles that shaped how they made decisions—principles that were the ingredients of the culture. These provide the framework for the brand itself and for this book, and that framework begins with the Chick-fil-A Corporate Purpose:

To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come into contact with Chick-fil-A.

This is our why. And it’s carried out even in the most iconic visual connected with Chick-fil-A: the beloved Cows. One of our former marketing consultants, Alf Nucifora, noted, The [Cow] campaign offers an interesting insight into Chick-fil-A’s corporate style. After noting that one of Chick-fil-A’s strengths lies in their commitment to a decision or direction once it is created, like their Corporate Purpose or Operator concept, he continued, they don’t waver. They don’t shift. That is refreshing, and from a marketing standpoint, it can be very valuable, as you can see with the Cow campaign. They have resisted the urge to gussie it up, to change it, to get rid of it, or to do the wrong things to it.

The Corporate Purpose statement, created in 1982, grew out of a time of financial crisis when the national economy was in the midst of a serious recession and same-store sales fell for the first time ever. Capturing it in writing and disseminating it around the company kept our focus on why we were in business and on the deeply held beliefs that fed our culture.

Truett often talked about stewardship of talent, money, and influence, which belong to God who entrusts them to us. Serving as a steward rather than an owner of the assets gave Truett a freedom to express his generosity by sharing God’s gifts with his associates and neighbors. He impacted many lives, and his model deeply affected me.

As Chick-fil-A grew, with the Corporate Purpose as our cultural foundation, we didn’t think in terms of revolutionary initiatives for building the brand. Others might look at the Cow campaign, or college football, or the introduction of the grilled sandwich as strategic milestones, but we saw them as more than that. The real journey was moving from a sandwich-focused operational restaurant chain to an experiential brand, as we came to understand how Cathy family-style hospitality and relational marketing could be executed in a fast-food restaurant. Out of that understanding came our mission: Be REMARKable. We wanted every customer’s brand encounter to be remarkable, to leave an above-average, positive impression. To that end, we attempted to create experiences that people would want to talk about.

To achieve this mission, we created the Raving Fan Strategy,¹ which executed Operational Excellence, delivered Second-Mile Service, and activated Emotional Connections Marketing. These three major strategic pillars represent the operating strategy, and they are all designed to undergird restaurant Operators as they express and build the brand. And that last phrase is key—singular, in fact, in the fast-food industry. Chick-fil-A restaurant Operators serve as the primary expression of the brand as they meet customers at the front line. Only they can deliver the total Raving Fan experience.

Other brands rely on marketing and advertising to drive customers to restaurants. Chick-fil-A relies on the restaurant Operators and the teams they build to attract customers into their restaurants. Others drive; we attract. To make such a system succeed, Truett created a store-level financial model that generously favors the Chick-fil-A Operator rather than the home office or the owners (which was Truett and is now the Cathy family, though they will tell you that God owns Chick-fil-A). This financial model attracts leaders who build a culture of true hospitality.

As I tell the story of the brand, almost every aspect of it begins with Truett’s heart. He may have been the most humble man I ever knew, as well as the most generous and wise.

That’s the basis of the culture, the soil that Chick-fil-A thrives in.

Truett instinctively knew what many professionals spend years learning: a successful brand builds a foundation on relationships, relevance, and reputation.

Relationships

Long before he created the Chick-fil-A Sandwich and decades before he opened the first Chick-fil-A restaurant, Truett Cathy was making friends and serving customers at his Dwarf Grill restaurant in Hapeville, Georgia. His genuine love created a space where people enjoyed good food together and employees truly felt like family. Truett and his brother Ben alternated working twelve-hour shifts six days a week. Truett, who was single when they opened, rented a room in a house next door and slept lightly. If he heard car tires crunching on the parking lot gravel, he got up and walked over to help his brother or the grill man. He developed relationships.

Relevance

Truett had selected the location deliberately. He didn’t want to be lost in the crowd of small diners in Atlanta, which in 1946 included Toddle Houses, Dutch Kitchens, and dozens of independents. The site he chose in downtown Hapeville was on US Highway 41, which connected Miami, Florida, to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. In those pre-interstate highway days, thousands of travelers would pass his location every day. Also, Ford Motor Company was in the process of building its new Atlanta assembly plant across the road. Beginning in 1947, the plant would employ more than two thousand hourly workers. Every shift change would be an opportunity to serve workers coming and going. And the Atlanta Municipal Airport and thousands of airline employees were just around the corner. He focused on relevance.

Reputation

Truett and Ben borrowed as little money as possible, $6,600, to build their Dwarf Grill restaurant in 1946. They did much of the construction work themselves and bought used kitchen equipment to keep expenses down. Their total investment on opening day was $10,600.

I can handle any problem but a financial problem, I heard Truett say many times. He avoided overextending, and he paid invoices quickly, patterning his life and his business after Proverbs 22:1: A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, loving favor rather than silver and gold (NKJV). He understood reputation.

Truett Cathy didn’t open the first Chick-fil-A restaurant until 1967, when he was forty-six years old. For the first two decades of his career he ran a mom-and-pop diner. That fact alone explains the difference between Chick-fil-A and so many other American brands. He was a restaurateur.

Truett also never got ahead of himself. He never let financial goals get in the way of personal relationships. In fact, Truett had an aversion to financial goals. To him, that would have been letting the tail wag the dog. When it came to business, his philosophy was to climb with care and confidence, adding new restaurants slowly. He could have borrowed more money and grown the chain much faster. Money was never the limiting factor; banks were eager to lend money to Chick-fil-A. Rather, he would never grow faster than the chain could attract talent and build management systems. Disciplined growth allowed him to select Operators who shared his business philosophy and love for customers.

He kept borrowing to a minimum, and he never offered stock for sale. He never wanted the financial demands of bankers or shareholders to compromise decisions for his customers and employees. In essence, he didn’t want to feel obligated to shareholders or lose control.

Most predominant American brands chase transactions, often through rapid growth. They borrow heavily to expand quickly. Businesses often focus on short-term results because of marketplace pressures. This is particularly true of publicly traded companies, which must report quarterly results to shareholders. Private companies sometimes fall into the same trap, foregoing the long-term opportunity to build a brand that people identify with and feel an emotional relationship with—a brand they cannot see themselves living without.

Roots of My Brand Experience

My first exposure to brand building came from my father, John B. Robinson, who, like Truett, started his business shortly after the end of World War II. Dad had grown up on his family’s farm in Radnor, Ohio, northwest of Columbus, where his father raised Robinson Hybrid seed corn, a variety developed by my grandfather in consultation with Ohio State University. He could have stayed in the family business, but he was tired of Ohio winters and knew the growing season was longer in the South. So in 1948, soon after he married my mother, Martha Haynes, they moved to Foley, Alabama, in Baldwin County, where he and his brother Dale started their own hybrid seed corn business. Rather than attempting to build the Robinson Hybrid corn brand from scratch in the South, they chose to plant Funk hybrid seed corn because it had a marketing arm and a network of salesmen calling on seed corn wholesalers, farm supply distributors, and even foreign market distributors. It also led to higher yields for farmers. With more feed corn per acre than regular corn, it was a less expensive option for livestock.

Raising crops just ten miles north of the Gulf of Mexico, Dad envisioned getting a jump on the Midwest market by putting seed corn on barges headed north on the Mississippi River weeks before corn was ready for harvest in the Midwest. He succeeded, but Dad wasn’t the only farmer who had seen the opportunity to get a head start. Over time the proliferation of hybrid corn in the South impacted the price of seed corn in the Midwest. In response (Dad thought, but we never really knew for sure), Congress passed the Farm Subsidy Bill. It propped up corn prices and paid property owners in parts of the Southeast to take acreage out of corn cultivation. In fact, it paid farmers more to plant trees or soybeans than Dad could pay to lease their land for his corn. Whatever Congress’s intentions, the effect of the farm subsidy program was that seed corn

Reviews for Covert Cows and Chick-fil-A

[medwards429 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

“Covert Cows and Chick-fil-A” is not an exposé. Instead it is written as an inside look from a long-time employee’s view. An employee who was there before the “cows” came home, so to speak.

There are a LOT of faith references in the book. The reason for that is the founder, S. Truett Cathy, was a man of faith. He used his faith and those tenements to build his business and train his people, thus becoming a brand and a successful one at that. That faith is reflected in the mission statement of the company:

“To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us. To have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-Fil-A”

As a result, the success of the restaurant is built on the relationships with the people – customers and staff. He believed the customers were the business not the product they were selling. Their corporate outlook is customers then operators. The rest comes successfully. Even testing new menu items involves the customers.

S. Truett Cathy made the decision to close on Sundays in 1946 when he opened his first restaurant in Hapeville, Georgia (The Dwarf Grill). He saw the importance of closing on Sundays so that he and his employees could set aside one day to rest and worship if they choose – a practice they still uphold today.

“We should be about more than just selling chicken. We should be a part of our customers’ lives and the communities in which we serve.” S. TRUETT CATHY (1921—2014)

He believed in a relationship with the customers as a guide – meaning the owner/operator (manager) had a hands on approach to running the store.

As of 2018, they had jumped in sales to #5 in sales behind No. 1 McDonald's, Starbucks, Subway and Taco Bell. Those chains are open seven (7) days a week – Chick-fil-A isn’t.

Looking at the per store averages, how many locations they operate, and the smaller menu – Chick-fil-A earns more (on an average) per store. In 2017, CFA per unit, made about $4,090,900. The total sales for a McDonald’s ($2,670,320 per unit), Starbucks ($945,270/unit) and Subway ($416,860/unit) is $4,032,450 combined.

Okay, so why did CFA need the cows?

Marketing. No one knew Chick-fil-A other than word of mouth. And, CFA didn’t have the multi-million marketing budget their competitors had. But, why cows? It came after someone said, jokingly, “don’t have a cow”. From there the idea was born.

In short, the cows don’t work for Chick-fil-A. They’re never CFA shills. They’re solely in it for self preservation. That’s always the number one thing to remember. They stay witty and relevant to avoid becoming burgers.

It started in 1995 when some renegade cows, who couldn’t spell, wrote: “Eat Mor Chikin” on a billboard in Texas. And, it proved successful. When asked, the customers had an 80% recall of the advertising.

This book describes the early days – the early locations, marketing, business ventures and strategies.

This book is a testament to faith, people over profits, and that that remaining a success is harder than becoming one.

Highly recommended for people who are fans of the restaurant as well as those who are curious as to how it became successful.