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KFC Coupon Disaster

May 9, 2009 by Kathryn Hendershot 10 Comments

The KFC Coupon Disaster of 2009 is an example of a great advertising idea that went horribly awry.  It’s not the first time I’ve written about the strange exploits of KFC advertising.  In 2006, KFC was advertising targeting extraterrestrials.

The KFC Coupon Disaster of 2009 illustrated the great cosmic power of Unlimited and Free.  Unfortunately, it was implemented so poorly that it made headlines at the time and illustrated how a powerful a promotional tool like “free” can be.

Learn how to give away something for free without destroying your business and your brand in this post.

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The KFC coupon disaster was nothing to crow about
Photo by Dušan veverkolog

In the immortal words of Stan Lee, “With great power comes great responsibility.”  In other words, powerful promotional tools like free must be used properly.

Unfortunately, the 2009 KFC Coupon Debacle is an example of a great advertising idea implemented without planning and thought.  As a result, this disastrously destructive campaign put enormous financial pressure on franchise owners.

With great power comes great responsibility by Stan Lee
Photo by Mulyadi

 

KFC Coupon Disaster

Hindsight is always 20/20.  With that said, there were some rookie mistakes made in the 2009 KFC Coupon Debacle.

The restaurant chain KFC was formerly known as Kentucky fried Chicken.  Years earlier, the company decided to distance itself from the word “fried.”   To put distance between the chain and their own version of the “F” word,  they “condensed” the name of the chain to KFC.  I guess they thought we would eventually FORGET that the “F” in KFC stood for fried.  Maybe they thought that we would think that it stood for something else – such as Kentucky FABULOUS Chicken.

it's called the brand development process process because it's a never ending job.Come to think of it, maybe they weren’t just trying to distance themselves from only the word “fried.”  Maybe they also wanted distance themselves from Kentucky as well.  (I personally love Kentucky.  It’s a gorgeous state.) As is often the case, it’s hard to tell what exactly is going on with this once great brand.

This isn’t the first time Kentucky Fried Chicken has me trying to figure out why they made the decisions they have about the brand. The Kentucky Fried Chicken brand is one near and dear to my heart  When I was growing up, KFC was my family’s Sunday meal tradition.  Years later, when I think about “mom’s” cooking, it’s the Colonel’s famous recipe that I remember.  Even so, I have not been to a KFC in ages. The menu items have too much fat, carbs, and calories.  The last time I ate there, I was sick for a day.

In an attempt to try to regain business from health conscious consumers (like me), KFC began offering grilled chicken. Adding a “healthy” chicken item was a LONG overdue move. However, the way in which KFC handled the debut of this item is positively epic in it’s ineptitude.

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KFC Epic Ineptitude

KFC decided to debut this new menu item by offering a FREE chicken dinner compliments of Oprah Winfrey.  Having the then queen of all media plug their new menu item was quite an accomplishment.

The Oprah KFC promotion included two free pieces of KFC’s new grilled chicken, two sides and a biscuit.  This was literally a full meal deal.  Note: Everyone involved kind of overlooked the overall nutritional profile of this promotion.  This full meal deal was still rich in fats and carbs.

Free is an extremely powerful promotional tool that must used sparingly and properly.

At the time it illustrated the power of Oprah.  When Oprah Winfrey promoted the coupons on her popular talk show, everybody jumped on board.

Let me be clear:

THE PROBLEM IS NOT THAT THE COUPON WAS PROMOTED ON THE OPRAH SHOW.   THE PROBLEM WAS THE CAMPAIGN WAS POORLY PLANNED AND POORLY CONSTRUCTED!!!

Free is an extremely powerful promotional tool that must be used sparingly and properly.If you’d like to avoid making the ROOKIE mistakes made by a national ad campaign, use these quick, simple, easy to use rules on harnessing the power of FREE to promote your business:

RULE #1 of FREE: YOU GOTTA HAVE LIMITS

The KFC Free Chicken Coupon broke this rule in more ways than one.

First, by offering the coupons via Oprah Winfrey’s website rather than via a traditional coupon, they were offering an UNLIMITED number of coupons. Someone should have introduced the execs in charge of this campaign to how many “customers” Google services each and every day.

Had KFC printed out the coupons, they could have maintained control over the number of coupons distributed.  Remember, this is before the age of smart phones.  People had to print this coupon to redeem it. By offering the coupon via the internet, the search term “Oprah Winfrey KFC coupons” quickly rose to the one of the most popular search terms at the time.

The website traffic estimator Alexa (not your AI virtual assistant… Amazon’s traffic spy tool) offered this tasty bit of information about the effect of the coupon on traffic to Oprah.com

Alexa Screenshot 2009 KFC Coupon Disaster Traffic Spike on Oprah.com
Alexa Screenshot 2009 KFC Coupon Disaster Traffic Spike on Oprah.com

Look at that huge spike in conjunction with the free KFC coupon!!!  Impressive!!!

As a result, millions of people printed out MULTIPLE coupons for redemption. At the time, KFC didn’t realize that, unlike a traditional coupon, there was no way to control the number of coupons printed by consumers.  Everyone with a computer and a printer just started printing away.  If you didn’t have a computer and a printer, then you asked someone who did to do this for you.

There was no way to control the number of coupons redeemed by consumers.

This isn’t an uncommon problem when offering freebies.  This is why when smart business owners put limits on “free” offers.

Which brings us to the RULE #2 OF FREE that KFC broke:

Rule #2 of FREE:  DON’T GIVE AWAY TOO MUCH FOR FREE

Free is a powerful promotional tool.  Want a promotion to go viral?  Offer something of value for free.

Establishing conditions for the offer is just good business. Sometimes, it’s as simple as the consumer needs to provide a name and valid email address.  This means that customers are providing “permission to market” in exchange for the freebie. It also means they’re not getting something for absolutely nothing.  Instead they’re “paying” by turning over their contact information.

Another way to keep from giving away too much for free is to require an additional purchase.  KFC could have offered the free chicken with the purchase of two sides and a drink.  Would it have “diluted” the “power” of the free meal deal. OF COURSE !!!  But that’s the point.

The KFC Coupon Disaster Abruptly Ends

In response to the overwhelming response which was threatening to bankrupt franchisees, KFC quickly launched a new television ad.  In the ad, KFC they announced the coupons were no longer valid.  They then apologized for making a promise they had no intention of fulfilling.

Needless to say, this upset consumers.  Advertising builds trust, but this debacle did the opposite. People everywhere were complaining about the “raw deal” associated with the KFC coupon.  At the time, I even heard a radio announcer griping about it on air.

Did KFC pay for that announcer to talk about them?  Of course not.  What business exec actively pursues NEGATIVE publicity?  Oh that’s right, that’s what the execs running the KFC campaign did.

Maybe there is such a thing as BAD publicity

All publicity is good publicity.  So they say, but I can’t see an upside to this.  The television spot they ran featured the CEO proclaiming what a “hit” the promotion was.  He even bragged about “how much America LOVES KFC grilled chicken.”

Um, I hate to be the bearer of bad news – but people are NOT talking about the chicken. They’re talking about the ineptitude of your company.  There’s a BIG difference between the two.

  • The Evil Beet posted an article titled Oprah Destroys KFC
  • The Consumerist wrote about it too
  • The Big Money wrote, “Oprah’s KFC Catastrophe”
  • Even the Huffington Post wrote “Free Offer Creates Nightmare”

The articles above were once links to just a few of the articles at the time.  They are all gone except for this one. The only saving grace was that social media was in its infancy at the time.  I’m pretty sure this debacle would have killed KFC if it happened today.

A great advertising campaign can cause a well run business to prosper. A great advertising campaign can result in a poorly run business failing more quickly Fortunately for KFC, the KFC Coupon Disaster of 2009 has almost been completely forgotten.

I beg you not to forget.  Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

Filed Under: Beyond Marketing Tagged With: Advertising, advertising and the web, KFC, KFC Coupons

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. sajae says

    May 22, 2009 at 10:35 am

    I’m with you. I love KFC although their chicken is too greasy! LOL I think they are just trying to experiement with different labels and branding, which is not really a bad thing if you do it right.

    Reply
  2. Ninah says

    May 23, 2009 at 9:10 am

    Yikes. This post really hit me right on the eye. I offer articles for free but now I’m wondering if I’m giving too much for nothing at all. Your post is making me think twice about my current venture.

    Excellent post by the way. Very well explained.

    Reply
  3. Tim Andren says

    May 27, 2009 at 1:03 pm

    The free argument is going to get louder and louder with Chris Anderson’s new book ‘Free: The Future of a Radical Price’ coming out. The pendulum always swings too far one way or the other, and right now we’re deeply into the freemium territory. Things will shift back once cloud computing is figured out IMO.

    Reply
  4. Kathy says

    May 28, 2009 at 4:09 pm

    Tim – you’re right on target with your assessment of the pendulum. It’s most definitely swinging far and probably has even further to go.

    Reply
  5. Mark says

    September 7, 2010 at 10:11 am

    There are ways they could have controlled it on the web. They would have just needed to have provided some sort of coupon code.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Back to Marketing Basics « The Secret Diary of a Bonafide Marketing Genius says:
    June 12, 2009 at 11:10 am

    […] Dear Diary, Is it me or does it seem like a lot of marketers have lost their way lately? […]

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  2. Facebook Fan Pages – Ask WIIFM says:
    October 1, 2009 at 12:08 pm

    […] Page is FREE.  Great – free is great – when there’s value. KFC discovered that free is a powerful marketing incentive – but it’s a disaster when you offer free without […]

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  3. You’re too busy. : r-view says:
    February 22, 2010 at 7:40 pm

    […] It seems as if this is just one more way the first decade of the millennium was a failure. As the Great Recession bore down on business, busy moved from pervasive to pandemic, leaving marketing and communications especially ravaged. Digital and mobile messaging are of course the lead catalysts, and the result can be catastrophic for brands. If you don’t recall KFC’s coupon debacle this article recounts the disaster. […]

    Reply
  4. You’re too busy. | Riggs Partners says:
    September 24, 2010 at 4:45 pm

    […] It seems as if this is just one more way the first decade of the millennium was a failure. As the Great Recession bore down on business, busy moved from pervasive to pandemic, leaving marketing and communications especially ravaged. Digital and mobile messaging are of course the lead catalysts, and the result can be catastrophic for brands. If you don’t recall KFC’s coupon debacle this article recounts the disaster. […]

    Reply
  5. KFC Advertises To Extraterrestrials - Beyond Niche Marketing says:
    October 21, 2021 at 12:26 pm

    […] wait, it happened three years later in 2009 with the KFC Coupon Disaster!  Thanks KFC for keeping it […]

    Reply

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