All Clucked Up
MayorBob.
Posted to Business on Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 01:09:12 PM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.
The rollout of Kentucky Grilled Chicken by Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) was going to be humongous! They were going to give away chicken. The chicken was going to be healthier than KFC's standard fare. You could download coupons over the internet. They had Oprah on their side. But rather than reveling in their big success, the Colonel's people were wallowing in their complete failure.
As a promotional campaign, the closest disaster-wise that the free giveaway came to might be the "New Coke" fiasco of the 1980s. While that cock up might rank among the greatest, KFC's recent stumble joins it in the Promotional Campaign Hall of Shame (if there were such a place). KFC's idea was to launch its new grilled line of chicken in a big way. They'd have a demo on the Oprah Winfrey Show. They'd make give away free grilled chicken at their stores the very next day. People would sample the new sandwiches. People would be won over. KFC would rack in the profits. They wished.
About the only thing that worked was the demo on Oprah. In retrospect, probably too well, as it stoked expectations too high. The weak link in this promotional chain came when KFC had to honor the offer made. Oops, not enough chicken and too many customers left a sour taste in the mouths of many who had waited in line to only receive a voucher redeemable for grilled chicken in the future. Who willingly waits in line for hours for free chicken? Well, as other gastro emporiums can attest, the word "free" can make some people lose their minds.
Then came more bad news for KFC. It seems the secret ingredient in the company's grilled chicken was discovered - beef. Oh noes, that was enough to give a chicken competitor a fowl edge to their advertising. .As if the embarrassment of being tweaked by El Pollo Loco wasn't bad enough, there's a class action suit in the hopper over the matter. The suit seeks unspecified damages for the entire class of people (that would be everyone) who were damaged by KFC's "bait and switch" tactics.
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