BK Chicken Fries are a fried chicken product sold by the international fast-food restaurant chain Burger King. At the time of their introduction in 2005, the company had intended Chicken Fries to be one of their larger, adult-oriented products made with higher-quality ingredients than their standard menu items. Additionally, the product further targeted the snacking and convenience food markets with a specific packaging design that was intended to be easier to handle and fit into automotive cup holders. The product was part of a series of product introductions designed to expand Burger King's menu with both more sophisticated fare and present a larger, meatier product that appealed to 24- to 36-year-old males. Along with this series of larger, more complex menu products, the company intended to attract a larger, more affluent adult audience who would be willing to spend more on the better-quality products. They were discontinued in the United States in 2012, but continued to be sold in some markets, such as Italy. In August 2014, they were reintroduced for a limited-time offering (LTO) in North America, leading to their permanent re-addition to the menu in March 2015 in over 30 countries globally.
As one of the company's major offerings, the chicken fries are sometimes the center of product advertising for the company. The original advertisements were created by the firm of Crispin, Porter + Bogusky and were the subject of both criticism and legal action by the nu metal band Slipknot over claims of intellectual property rights, while later advertising programs started the company on a new direction of digital-based, multi-media advertising. With the product's North American reintroduction in 2014 and 2015, Burger King utilized a heavy social media campaign to help entice fans of the product back into restaurants. The company has also relied heavily on product tie-ins with the NFL, NCAA and NASCAR to promote the product across different demographic groups. Even though the product has been a prominent part of the menu for the better part of a decade, Burger King has released very few LTO variants of the product, with the first one being released in the summer of 2015. Despite being a major product line in the company's portfolio, Burger King has registered very few, if any, global trademarks to protect its investment in the product.
