Motivating Gen Z to get Loco.
When I joined El Pollo Loco, the brand had an opportunity to evolve. It had decades of heritage, a unique fire-grilled product and a passionate following, but the way it showed up didn’t always reflect the quality of the food or connect with a younger generation. To modernize we needed to tap into
the things only this brand could own — real fire, real flavor, and a protein health halo, without losing what made El Pollo Loco, loco.
And that meant getting sharper about who we were building the brand for and what they cared about. Moving beyond traditional demographics into psychographics, we defined our highest-opportunity audience as the Fast-Foodies, a group united less by age or income and more by a shared desire for food that delivers on flavor, quality and cultural relevance. It gave us a much richer picture of our consumer and clearer strategic filters for how, where and why the brand should show up.
That thinking transformed the paid, owned and earned media ecosystem, driving 6 straight quarters of sales growth and YOY positive transactions, bucking the category average. A more modern visual and verbal identity, elevated the perception of quality, while culturally relevant activations got people talking. The result was a more confident, distinctive El Pollo Loco — one built to connect with a new generation while staying true to the fire that made it famous.
At the center of that evolution was a new brand platform: Let’s Get Loco. More than a tagline, it gave the brand a mindset and a more distinctive way to show up in the world. It was an invitation to embrace the unexpected, have a little more fun and bring some energy to the everyday.
It also gave us a way into culture. A platform flexible enough to fuel social, inspire earned media and give the brand permission to participate in conversations and moments in ways that felt uniquely EPL.
And at its simplest, it worked as a functional call to action. Order some chicken. Join the conversation. Try something new. Let’s Get Loco. One idea that could take us from brand belief, to cultural expression, to the sign off of a TV spot.
But Let’s Get Loco wasn’t just a marketing idea. It began to influence how the entire organization thought and operated. For our Field and Operations teams, it became a rallying cry—a way to motivate restaurant teams and bring more energy to the guest experience.
It influenced the products we put into the world, pushing us toward ideas that felt more distinctive, craveable and worthy of loco fandom.
And as we entered new markets, we stopped thinking about awareness as something that started when the doors opened, instead looking for loco ways through culture & earned media to ignite a market before we even had a restaurant there — like popping up in gyms in “new year, new you” January and at Coachella — building curiosity, conversation before the first piece of chicken ever hit the grill.
That same Let’s Get Loco mindset reshaped how we showed up on social. We stopped treating our channels like a place to simply promote the brand and started using them to build fandom — showing up with more personality, reacting to culture and creating content people actually wanted in their feeds.
And people responded, with our social followers grew by 71%. TikTok became an especially strong signal that the shift was working, with a 44% increase in engagement. More than bigger numbers, it showed us that a more distinctive, culturally connected El Pollo Loco could turn an audience into fans, and fans into brand advocates.