May 8, 2009
Kentucky Fried Chicken's Viral Marketing Failure
By: William Levins
When I saw the KFC commercial, I immediately turned to my wife and said, "this is going to back fire on them." And guess what...they've stopped honoring the free coupons, instead you can obtain a rain check – if you go to a KFC for it. Yeah, I don't think so.
It's embarrassing that KFC would subject themselves to this type of viral marketing failure. KFC's apology/rain check page offers the explanation that the response exceeded their expectations. If you offer something free in today's internet connected world....then you have to be prepared to honor this free offer even if it explodes. At the very least, they should have anticipated 300 million free meals. Yup, they should have expected one free meal for every person in the United States - and only made the offer if they were willing to honor free meals for all of them.
The idea of free meals to introduce their grilled chicken was a good one, but their failure to live up to it over shadows the positive. Sure, they're offering a rain check, provided you visit a KFC, get a form, fill it out, attach your original coupon, then mail it or give it to the KFC manager. How many people are going to do that? Instead of generating positive buzz....they've created negative feedback. What KFC has now is a bunch of disgruntled customers telling everyone they know how KFC wouldn't give them their free meal.
I hope other companies learn from KFC's viral marketing mistake and realize, when you make an offer to the public, you'd better be prepared to honor it even if the response is overwhelming.
What others are saying:
- Advertising (35)
- Art (8)
- Branding (34)
- Business (62)
- Cascading Style Sheets CSS (3)
- Cats (4)
- Cocktail Recipes (2)
- Color Theory (6)
- Direct Mail (1)
- Going Green (9)
- Graphic Design (66)
- Illustration (4)
- Interior Design (2)
- jldcreative (19)
- Logos (6)
- Marketing (38)
- Miscellaneous Thoughts (113)
- Packaging Design (13)
- Photography (5)
- Sales (5)
- Search Engine Optimization (4)
- Social Networking (9)
- Technology (23)
- Typography (6)
- Viral Marketing (8)
- Web Design (20)
Comment Now
