LA ORDEN DE MAMÁ
Pollería Fuego · QSR
Challenge
Brand reappraisal — Urban Latin American millennials and Gen Z professionals aged 22-35 who grew up eating at family-run pollerías but now see fast-casual chicken chains as downmarket and incompatible with their aspirational, digitally curated lifestyles
Insight
Across Latin America, AI-powered food delivery apps are increasingly deciding what people eat through algorithmic recommendations — but the one order that no algorithm can replicate is the hyper-specific, seemingly irrational customization your mother always demanded at the neighborhood pollería ('extra crispy but not too dark, the thigh from the back, more salsa but on the side, and tell them it's for me'). That maternal ordering ritual — chaotic, bossy, deeply personal — is the most authentic proof that a restaurant actually listens to real people, not data models.
Idea
Let AI try — and spectacularly fail — to replicate the impossible customizations of real Latin American mothers' chicken orders, proving that Pollería Fuego is built for humans, not algorithms.
Execution
Pollería Fuego partnered with real mothers across Mexico, Colombia, and Peru, recording their actual chicken orders in all their contradictory, hyper-specific glory. These orders were then fed into leading AI chatbots and delivery app algorithms, which were filmed struggling, glitching, and misinterpreting the requests in real time. The split-screen content showed the AI's confused output alongside Pollería Fuego staff fulfilling each order perfectly, from memory, with a knowing smile. The campaign launched as a series of short-form social films, each named after the mother ('La Orden de Doña Carmen,' 'La Orden de Doña Lucía'). An experiential activation invited people to bring their own mothers into flagship locations where their orders were fulfilled live while an AI attempted the same task on-screen. A custom WhatsApp ordering bot was introduced that recognized returning customers' past preferences, explicitly branded as 'not AI — just people who remember you.'