How Golden Chick’s new director of marketing Sharon Pewitt is bringing the brand into the futureHow Golden Chick’s new director of marketing Sharon Pewitt is bringing the brand into the future

Joanna Fantozzi

In January, Texas-based fried chicken chain, Golden Chick, announced the hiring of Sharon Pewitt as director of marketing. Pewitt previously served as the main contact for Golden Chick’s creative partner, the Loomis agency, for six years, so has extensive knowledge of the brand and according to Golden Chick, has “transitioned seamlessly” onto the team. Pewitt, as one of the youngest leadership executives with Golden Chick, hopes to bring a newer and fresher perspective to the Dallas-based quick-service legacy brand, which is quickly approaching its 60^th birthday.

“I think coming into this space as somebody a little younger is exciting because it gives that fresh perspective of ‘here’s how I’m viewing the world, here’s how to reach people that I interact with on a daily basis, and here’s how to incorporate that into a brand that’s 50-plus years old,’” Pewitt said. “Golden Chick has had a lot of reimagining over the years, and I think we’re on the cusp of figuring out the audience of the future and how to speak to younger audiences. It’s great to bring that fresher perspective to meetings.”

Pewitt graduated from Texas A&M University in 2014, where she worked in foodservice throughout college. After college, Pewitt worked for Delta, where she gained customer service experience, and then joined the Loomis agency, where she represented Golden Chick on the agency side for more than three years. Now, she is working with Golden Chick again but this time from the brand side.

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“It's kind of like coming home,” Pewitt said. “Golden Chick was the first restaurant brand I got to work with, and I did a lot of fun rebranding initiatives for them. After that, I worked on other brands with the agency… Then, when Howard Terry [the CMO] came to me with this opportunity, it was a no-brainer. I have loved this brand for so long, and it would be exciting to usher in some new growth and bring in a fresh set of thinking.”

Golden Chick had 20 restaurant openings in 2023, and is expecting aggressive growth in 2024 and beyond, particularly in the Southwest and Southeastern states, including Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi and Nevada. Pewitt will be helping to spearhead menu innovation and new marketing campaigns that are focused on modernizing the Golden Chick brand. Pewitt said that this year, the brand will have several LTO launches (though no further details are available yet) and will be launching a new media campaign.

Data insights will be a particularly important aspect of the Golden Chick refresh, she added. The company started digging into and extracting more customer insights through data last year, and now it’s time to put that data to work.

Related:Golden Chick names Howard Terry to new CMO position

“I'm excited because there's this wealth of data and now it's just sifting through it and figuring out what are those nuggets that can translate into sales,” Pewitt said. “I think we need to take what’s been working and slowly build upon it…. Marketing is an ever-evolving landscape. There are so many different levers you can pull, and I think it’s about figuring out what is the right lever.”

The right levers for connecting with younger Millennial and Gen Z guests are brand authenticity, consistency, and connection, Pewitt said, and she hopes that her team can leverage them correctly.

“Customers want to feel like when they show up at this brand, they are getting the same experience every single time,” she said. “They want to feel like they're being seen on social, that there’s a conversation and they’re not just being advertised at…. So I’m asking, ‘where are those connection points? Where are we having those conversations?’ We want to make them fans, not just customers.”

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