I realized today that I don’t include nearly enough graphics on my blog. For someone as visual as me, that’s a very bad thing! I know I hate to read word-heavy websites, and apparently I’ve been subjecting people to the same for a very long time. I have an evident “pain” that most of you probably share, yet I’ve ignored it entirely over the past … has it been two years already?
From this point forward, I will try to start every week with some kind of marketing/branding-related image. We’ll see how I do!
This week’s image is more a mental construct than anything else. Add together an average fast food restaurant and a wildly popular talk show host. What do you get? Chaos. Yes, I’m talking about the already sensationalized Oprah/KFC fiasco from this past weekend. Oprah announced on her show and website that KFC would be giving her viewers free meals of their new “grilled” chicken if they brought in the coupon. This offer was popular – perhaps too much so!
I went to KFC this weekend for dinner … just to witness the craziness first-hand. At this point (Saturday night), KFC had stopped honoring the coupons and had started issuing rain checks to would-be diners. Still, the line was out the door when I got there. Ironically, only one other person in line was actually there to order food! Everyone else just wanted the rain check!
So where did this promotion go wrong? It succeeded in getting people to come to KFC in droves to try out a new product. It leveraged the powerful Oprah brand to thrust KFC out of advertising mediocrity. But it failed horribly in its execution. KFC was in no way prepared for the consumer response, and destroyed what little brand reputation it had in many people’s minds.
If you advertise people can come to your place of business and recieve a free product in exchange, you better have plenty on hand. When those customers are turned away with a piece of paper rather than a sizzling chicken breast, I guarantee they’ll hold a certain level of animosity towards you for a long time. Even if someone else made the promise – it’s still your name on the door.
