This week Oprah Winfrey helped promote KFC's new grilled chicken on her show. A coupon for a free meal of two pieces of grilled chicken, a side, and a biscuit as part of a show encouraging American's to eat healthier was posted to the home page of Oprah.com and America went wild. In the online world, the KFC hash tag #kfc spent the week as one of Twitter's top 10 trending topics and dozens of people posted videos on YouTube. And in the offline world, many were turned away from stores that couldn't keep up with demand.
There's No Such Thing As Bad PR
Any one who knows anything about marketing knows that there is no such thing as bad PR. It's all about how you react to what's happening that makes all the difference. There have been an endless number of case studies on how Dell handled the crisis over batteries catching fire in laptops or Tylenol handling poison caplets. I think that this KFC coupon response will be the latest case study in how to jump on a crisis and turn it into something positive for the business.
This week, KFC responded across the marketing mix. On Twitter, KFC worked to answer all direct messages from customers on Twitter and to get the word out that KFC was going to honor all coupons. On YouTube, KFC CEO Roger Eaton spoke directly to customers to let them know that KFC was honoring all coupons and was throwing in a free Pepsi. KFC worked with Oprah to get the coupon off Oprah's website and to post a new message there about the promotion. And, in the KFC newsroom, a press release went out apologizing for the inconvenience to customers and getting information out about the rain check.
I have to say that this former Kentucky Fried Chicken counter girl and now professional marketer is very impressed by KFC's ability to a) get the promotion out through Oprah in the first place, and b) to respond to the crisis that occurred when so many Americans tried to cash in their coupon at KFC franchises all at the same time. As for my feelings about the new KFC Colonel bobble head doll...well I'm not digging' that, but we'll save my thoughts on that promo for another day.
