Humanaut Designs 'Holy Chicken!' Brand for Super Size Me Sequel

For the release of the documentary Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken! advertising agency Humanaut and Director Morgan Spurlock will open a fast-food chicken restaurant in New York from Sept. 11 to Sept. 22 to feed patrons while educating them on its “natural, free-range, hormone-free chicken sandwiches.”

But therein lies the rub. The original Super Size Me took McDonald’s to task for upselling bigger, cheaper burgers to a consumer market that was indexing higher for obesity, diabetes and other health issues. Since then, and partly in response to that film, McDonald’s and other fast food brands have turned to marketing their menu items as healthier, fresher and more sustainable. Enter Holy Chicken!, where Spurlock keeps after the corporate food giants and takes aim at this whole new wave of marketing tricks. Holy Chicken! is billed as “a fast-food brand that just tells the truth.” The film opens in New York City and Los Angeles on September 6. Spurlock will appear at the shop on Wednesday, Sept. 11 at 11 a.m.

Humanaut built the Holy Chicken! brand featured in the documentary as well as all assets for the pop-up shop, from the cartoon chicken mascot and the Instagram-friendly décor to the artful explanations of the adspeak to the design of all cups, signs, tray liners and other collateral. The shop’s founders, David Littlejohn and Andrew Clark, are featured in the film as Morgan’s insider guide to the “health halo” created by food marketers.

The biggest thing that has changed about cheap fast food in 15-years since “Super Size” is how cheap fast food is marketed,” said David Littlejohn Humanaut’s Co-Founder and Chief Creative Director. “We’ve been fighting the BS in food marketing since we opened shop. We couldn’t be more excited to help build the world’s most honest brand while entertaining and educating people about the deceptive practices used by the fast-food and advertising industries.”

At the modest (read: authentic) Holy Chicken! pop-up at 18 W. 23rd St., customers can order the Original Grilled Crispy Chicken Sandwich (with painted-on “gryll” marks), Li’l Cluckers Chicken Tenders, veggie sides and “Holy Water” seen in the film from a deliberately sparse (“has an appearance of quality”) menu. The shop will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.

Meanwhile, decorative store signage delivered in a faux farm-to-table aesthetic points out to patrons the myriad ways fast-food and other quick-service restaurants (QSRs) have adapted the way they sell their food to appeal to more conscious consumers by crafting positive-sounding phrases in handwritten type and environmentally friendly green hues. A small floor map notes the amount of space a farm is required to claim that its chickens are raised “free range.”

While restaurant brands’ actual improvements to food quality and ethics varies widely, the terms they use to signal this shift—such as “natural,” “transparent” and “artisanal”—are largely unregulated and have no legal substance. As Andrew Clark, Humanaut co-founder and chief strategist says: “What this means is that the fast food business is still cultivating and profiting from its customers’ own worst eating habits, only now they’re helping them feel better about it by dressing it up as something “good” for themselves and society.”

One poster proudly introduces customers to “Flavor-Char,” a proprietary term for painted-on grill marks that give diners the impression its deep-fried chicken is grilled, a method that implies it is healthier, more appetizing, and more “artisanal.’ Another explains that “Goodness = good (for business).”