The Chicken Wars Are Back

Are we doing this again? Yes, we're doing this again.

The chicken sandwich wars are back, raging on thanks to Zaxby’s, which is throwing down against the likes of Popeyes, Chick-fil-A, Shake Shack, Wendy’s and KFC. The Southern chicken chain announced its step into the fray this week with a quote tweet of Popeyes’ 2019 “... y’all good?” message that kicked off the conflict, with Zaxby’s adding “... y’all good?” The new sandwich is competitive in size and flavored with a new sauce.

The battle rages on: Adweek spoke with Zaxby's CEO about why the restaurant brought back the chicken wars.

The biggest companies in television—Disney, NBCUniversal, ViacomCBS and WarnerMedia, and even Netflix—have all seen massive overhauls and restructures of their higher ranks over the past three months. These shifts are all toward common goals: bolstering the businesses to meet the streaming boom (both in terms of viewership and new players entering the market), cutting costs amid pandemic challenges, unifying across portfolios and keeping customers and advertisers happy.

But more change is ahead: Discover what each major shift means for these companies—and the future of streaming.

Speaking of new players: T-Mobile is pushing into TV and streaming with a new service, TVision, which aims to disrupt the “cableopoly” that “holds TV fans hostage.”

In one of the biggest reviews of the year, WPP held onto Walgreens, which reported net advertising expenses of $585 million in its fiscal 2019. It's a huge win for WPP, which will serve as the brand's advertising partner until 2022, with an option to extend the partnership to 2024.

Sources explain: Why WPP held onto the account over top contender, Publicis.

Wieden+Kennedy’s New York office has been on a roll lately, racking up win after win lately, including McDonald’s, Michelob Ultra, Kraft Heinz and Duracell, leading to four consecutive years of powerful revenue growth. Tapping this success, the company is elevating New York managing director Neal Arthur and executive creative director Karl Lieberman to global roles—chief operations officer and chief creative officer, respectively. Starting in 2021, the duo will work with president as global CCO Colleen DeCourcy.

Building on momentum: The goal is to leverage the New York’s office’s success, but not to duplicate its style.

Also in job moves:

Layoffs aren’t a new thing in 2020, but new research from Forrester shows that they might continue into 2021 for the agency world. The study estimates that a total of 35,000 jobs will be lost in 2020, and 17,000 more will follow next year, and that on average, agencies have laid off 11% of staff since March. The pandemic has, by necessity, accelerated the push toward digital solutions, which the study predicts will result in more than 10% of digital, creative and media agency tasks will be automated.

What does that mean for agencies? Teams will shrink, machine learning will take over—and transformation will begin.

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The chain wants to be as synonymous with flatbread pizza as it is with soups and salads.