It is no secret that when the economy is as bad as it is bucks for marketing and promotion are hard to come by. Even when the economy is upbeat it can be difficult to increase the marketing and advertising budgets. But when sales are off and because of a recession there are no projections that things will change in the near future, companies are looking to cut marketing and advertising costs, not increase them. What relatively few bucks you do have, you better use wisely.
Unfortunately, this is not the case with the recent debacle at KFC. For whatever reason, the marketing team decided to launch a grilled chicken campaign. Grilled chicken in a friend chicken joint, right there you have dilemma. Especially when your initial branding is based on Kentucky Fried Chicken and a long deceased special recipe for just that and not any bird that meets the grill. But so it goes. This would not be the first group to dilute the brand.
Perhaps in borrowing a page from the recently successful Denny’s campaign where the restaurant chain gave away a free Grand Slam Breakfast, the KFC marketing and promotion group thought they would offer free grilled chicken. They even tied in with Oprah Winfrey to further promote the offer. Two free pieces of grilled chicken when you redeem the coupon. The marketing group back up this play by spending millions of dollars on a television ad campaign.
As noted in the article in Advertising Age, every KFC restaurant was soon overwhelmed by hungry victims of our recession, looking to redeem their coupons for two free pieces of chicken. Some even printed the original coupon and gave it to their friends. Reportedly, there were riots as chicken lovers were denied and the order window. In all, it was a mess. KFC had to rescind the offer, telling customers that if they had the fortitude to bring in their old coupon and sign up for a new coupon, sometime in the future KFC would honor the chicken offering.
As the erstwhile chicken deal lighted on the shack of catastrophe, the Public Relations team was accused of being asleep at the wheel. Consumers were upset. The media who sponsored the commercials were upset. The chain owners who were forced to pick up the free chicken tab were very upset. In all, KFC ended up angering more people than, arguably, any other campaign in history. Not quite the results it was looking for.
If this campaign is to gain historical prominence it will be taught in marketing departments at universities as what not to do. It will be remember with dismay on many levels, as those who remember the Edsel. If the initial grilled chicken product launch and promotion cost mega-millions, the clean up, regaining consumer trust, all that sort of stuff, will probably cost three times as much.
So when you hire a marketing team, whether it in-house or an outsourced agency, check out the employees very careful. If it is in-house, as part of your preemployment screening program, conduct professional reference checks. While most job candidates will provide you with references they believe will give them favorable reviews, you can still find out valuable information. You can ask about skill sets and inquire as to which campaigns they worked on. What was their role in those campaigns? From there you can research the campaigns themselves and ascertain your employment candidate’s relative success or failure in the services he provided. After conducting the professional reference checks, review his work samples with the knowledge provided by that reference review.
For outsourcing marketing companies, you should also ask for references. You should conduct careful business research to see if this agency is the right fit for you. You may not be able to drill down as deeply as if it was an in-house job hire, but you can still gather useful information. Avail yourself of it.
Marketing money is tight enough. Business is down due to this recession. In this economic climate, especially, you can’t afford to make mistakes.