Why Chili’s brought back its baby back ribs jingle

Since “I want my baby back, baby back, baby back ribs” first entered the cultural zeitgeist in the 1990s, Chili’s now-iconic jingle has had a habit of popping up in unexpected places.

In 1999, the tune made a cameo in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, and in the early aughts, NSYNC recorded their own version. Steve Carell even sang it on an episode of The Office. (Ask anyone who was on Vine in the 2010s, and they might associate the brand with this similarly iconic moment in pop-culture history.)

So it may be no wonder why, more than 20 years after NSYNC’s version was released, Chili’s revisited the jingle in order to help get “Chili’s back in the cultural conversation” after a few years out of the national advertising scene, CMO George Felix told Marketing Brew. Revamping a ’90s cultural touchstone was a natural fit, especially considering the enduring power of nostalgia in marketing, he said.

“We always knew we wanted to do something with the jingle, but you don’t just want to put the jingle back out,” he said. “You want to do something interesting.”

The new version of the jingle, revamped and recorded by the ’90s R&B icons Boyz II Men, is at the center of a new campaign that Felix said started driving conversation around the brand and began boosting sales within a week of its premiere.

Mistaken identity

Contrary to popular belief, this year’s campaign marks the first time Boyz II Men have put their spin on the Chili’s jingle. Joe Mulvihill, the group’s manager for almost two decades, told us that fans have stopped the group about a dozen times over the years to say they love the Chili’s jingle (and the song “I Swear,” by the R&B group All-4-One). Mistaking the NSYNC version of the jingle as being sung by Boyz II Men is more than just a mix-up—it’s a strange coincidence, seeing as Mulvihill was part of the team that worked with NSYNC and Chili’s more than 20 years ago, he said.

But there don’t seem to be any hard feelings over the mixup. When Mischief, the agency that worked on the new campaign, presented the idea to Mulvihill and he took it to Boyz II Men, “they didn’t even hesitate, we got on a Zoom right away,” he said. The creatives at Mischief were also scrambling for the chance to get involved with the project, according to Executive Creative Director Bianca Guimaraes.

Ultimately, the team embraced the confusion around who sang the OG jingle. The new “I Want My Baby Back” campaign is actually based on that concept: In the spot, the group addresses it off the bat, agreeing not to sing the jingle, but giving in to the urge not long after.

Proof is in the pudding chili

The ad is running across social and digital channels, including streaming services, through this month. Chili’s is also selling a limited-edition vinyl with the Boyz II Men jingle, as well a “’90s-inspired Boyz II Men tour T-shirt.”

Unlike earlier iterations, the new version of the jingle and campaign are designed to encourage consumer engagement on social media. Duetting is already a popular practice on TikTok, so Chili’s is encouraging people to use that feature to share their versions of the song, Guimaraes said.

It helps, of course, that jingles are having something of a renaissance on TikTok.

“The idea just lends itself so well to TikTok,” she said. “There’s been a lot of people engaging with it, not surprisingly, because just by watching the spot, you’re already singing it. Might as well use TikTok to get people to join the fun.”

The hashtag #chilisbabybackribs had 8.6 million views on TikTok seven days after the campaign’s premiere. Plus, Felix said, the hashtag trended in the top 10 topics on X the first day the campaign was live, with overwhelmingly positive sentiment.

Chili’s also clocked over 1.5 billion media impressions in less than a week, he said, including mentions on late-night talk shows, which is a “great sign you’re breaking into culture.” Felix declined to share specific figures, but he said Chili’s has been “exceeding our sales forecasts” since the release of the jingle.

“It’d be silly from my standpoint as a marketer who’s trying to build this brand to ignore something so strong and so strongly associated with our brand,” Felix said. “It wasn’t a matter of if we were going to bring it back. It was just when.”