Check Your Chicken: Waitrose Hits All the Right Notes on Animal Welfare

Wonderhood Studios brings humour and harmony to Waitrose’s Better Chicken pledge campaign

By Creative Salon

02 September 2025

Waitrose has launched a new campaign, ‘Check Your Chicken’, to celebrate the fulfilment of its groundbreaking pledge to the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC).

Created by Wonderhood Studios, the new ad stars comedian, creator and star of Taskmaster, Alex Horne, and his band, The Horne Section, the hero social film - crafted by Wonderhood Studios - features the band performing its new track in a comedy music video, whilst checking the quality of an array of Waitrose chicken products. The film also stars a selection of Waitrose Partners from around the country.

Wonderhood Studios and The Horne Section collaborated on rewriting the nostalgic ‘Chick, chick, chicken’ children’s song to deliver a witty, modern take on the well-known tune, with the aim of encouraging food lovers to check their chicken buying behaviour.

Through the song and creative, Alex and The Horne Section and Waitrose are spotlighting that, by the end of August 2025, 100% of Waitrose own brand fresh, frozen, and ingredient chicken – including chicken in ready meals, sandwiches, and sauces – will meet the Better Chicken Commitment's higher animal welfare standards. The song lyrics encourage shoppers to scrutinise the chicken they’re buying, and reassure them that every product on Waitrose’s shelves is ethically sourced as part of the supermarket’s commitment.

The campaign was developed by James Rafter and Myles Vincent, and the film was produced by Wonderhood Makers.

Nathan Ansell, Chief Customer Officer at Waitrose explains: “We're proud to be the only UK grocer to offer BCC compliant chicken across all our own brand chicken products, having achieved this by working together with our British farmers, committing to high standards, and introducing welfare labels to help customers make informed decisions.

“Working with our creative partners - and Alex Horne and The Horne Section - we’ve been able to launch a campaign that celebrates our commitments with honesty, humour, and one hell of an earworm. We hope it encourages UK shoppers to check, check, check their chicken.”

The campaign will also run on OOH, DOOH, Print and Audio. ‘Check Your Chicken’ is also supported by online, social, in store, CRM and media and influencer content.

OOH and print executions list off all of the Waitrose chicken products that meet the new standard, signed off with the endline, “The only supermarket where all our chicken checks out against the Better Chicken Commitment or higher”. Two OOH special builds in Shoreditch and Clapham, created by Grand Visual, break convention by being one of the longest 48-sheets produced.

Jack Croft and Stacey Bird, Executive Creative Directors at Wonderhood Studios, add: “It’s been an absolute pleasure to turn such an important commitment from Waitrose into such a silly and entertaining idea. Our out of home and special builds really show the breadth of the products that the Better Chicken Commitment covers, and we really hope our song with The Horne Section will have everyone singing about Better Chicken non stop.”

Media planning and buying was handled by MG OMD.

Jane Ridehalgh, Business Director at MG OMD, said: “Our mission was to craft a bold, innovative campaign to deliver standout and engagement with consumers, to highlight how Waitrose are leading the way in animal welfare, demonstrating their commitment to higher welfare standards across all their own-brand chicken products.

“To maximise impact, we prioritised channels which offered us the opportunity to showcase Waitrose’s commitment in an engaging, visual way across print and OOH. Notably, our special build OOH delivered this message in a fun, creative way via custom built unique installations that emphasised the breadth of products included. Radio activity was the perfect format to allow us to leverage and utilise our catchy chicken song at the heart of this campaign, turning it into an earworm that amplified message recall and audience connection.”

Alex Horne adds: “It’s a privilege to be part of such a positive step for animal welfare. All of Waitrose’s chicken checks out against the Better Chicken Commitment standards or higher, and that’s something worth putting into jingle form. If this song gets people thinking more about where their chicken comes from and how it was raised, then I’ll consider it a successfully catchy tune.”

Customers can find Waitrose’s higher-welfare chicken with the new animal welfare labels now, on shelves in stores nationwide, and catch the new track ‘Check Your Chicken’ playing across social platforms.