KFC Pays College Women for Ad Space on Buns

USA Today

KFC wants folks to watch its backside.

Or, more precisely, the backsides of female college students it's recruiting to promote its hot new bunless Double Down sandwiches.

Women on college campuses are being paid $500 each to hand out coupons while wearing fitted sweatpants with "Double Down" in large letters across their rear ends.

The promo comes as KFC is in the doldrums domestically. The world's largest chicken chain's U.S. same-store sales fell 7% in the second quarter. Nearly all its growth now is in international expansion.

Last week, the chain confessed that more than six in 10 Americans ages 18 to 25 — the chain's key demographic — couldn't identify who Colonel Sanders was in the KFC logo.

Now, it's turning to cute women parading around campus with "Double Down" emblazoned across their fannies.

The nation's largest women's group doesn't like it one bit. "It's so obnoxious to once again be using women's bodies to sell fundamentally unhealthy products," says Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women. What's more, she says, KFC has forgotten something important: Women make more than half the decisions about what to eat for dinner.

But KFC marketing chief John Cywinski says it's an effective way to catch the attention of young men — KFC's key customers and the biggest fans of Double Down.

As of Tuesday afternoon, KFC had received no complaints about the campaign, KFC spokesman Rick Maynard says. "We've taken a page out of the book of some apparel companies and sororities who have promoted in this way for years," Maynard says.

The program began last week at Spalding University in downtown Louisville. The chain plans to expand it to at least three more campuses. The additional schools and the women there will be picked via a Facebook promotion.

The stunt hasn't reached Colorado State University — and senior public relations major Candace Carlucci hopes it never does. "It may be funny, but it's also inappropriate and degrading," she says. "There must be another way for KFC to get its message out."

Brand guru Jonathan Salem Baskin says there's nothing "inherently wrong" with using women to attract guys, but in this case, "It's irrelevant to the product." KFC would do better, he says, to follow the McDonald's model: "Clean up your stores, fix the menu and please people with the food you make."

One point of confusion, he jokes: "I guess the buns do come with KFC's sandwich."

KFC tries to Revive Founder Colonel Sanders' Prestige

USA Today

 

 

Our cultural connection to Colonel Sanders seems to have been lost in the deep-fryer of time.

Colonel Harland Sanders, the goateed founder of KFC known for his white suits, string ties and "finger-lickin' good" punch line, would have turned 120 years old today.

But young adults don't know him from beans. More than six in 10 Americans ages 18 to 25 — the chain's key demographic — couldn't identify him in the KFC logo, according to a survey last week by the chain.

Worse, five in 10 believe he's a made-up icon and three in 10 haven't a clue who he was.

That's why KFC is taking action. Today, the world's largest chicken chain, with 15,000 outlets in 109 countries, unleashes an online PR blitz aimed at bringing the Facebook generation eye-to-eye with the venerable colonel.

"As time has gone by, the younger generation didn't get to see and experience him like other generations did" in ads and personal appearances, says spokeswoman Laurie Schalow. "We plan to celebrate the fact that our founder was a real person."

KFC will be using its Facebook presence, Twitter, MySpace, the KFC website and other digital outreach to introduce them to Sanders and prod them to create and upload a piece of art that could become a painting to hang (temporarily) next to the famous Norman Rockwell painting of Sanders at the company's headquarters in Louisville.

The image confusion is in part KFC's own doing.

In the past few decades, it ping-ponged back-and-forth from fried-chicken-maker to grilled chicken specialist. In the logo, it put the colonel in a red apron instead of his iconic white suit. And it turned its Kentucky Fried Chicken name into KFC.

"I wonder if most kids know what the initials KFC stand for?" poses brand guru Steven Addis. "It's just an alphabet soup now."

But Addis likes it that KFC is now essentially fessing up.

"It's a desperate but smart act to re-educate a generation," he says. "It's a clever way to embrace the problem rather than hide from it."

On a vaguely similar but much larger scale, Domino's late last year tossed out its pizza formula and mocked itself in ads that conceded the old pizza tasted like cardboard. Sales zoomed.

For KFC, it's been a rough year domestically. KFC's same-store sales fell 7% in the U.S. in the second quarter, facing a difficult comparison with the same quarter in 2009 when a new grilled chicken product was launched.

KFC has basically stopped growing in the U.S., and almost all growth is pegged to come internationally in 2010.

Now, KFC's trying to paint a new picture — actually asking its core consumers to paint it for them.

Through Sept. 30, artists can upload their sketches of the colonel at kfc.com/portrait.

The winning artist will receive $1,100 ($100 for each of the 11 herbs and spices used for the Colonel's Original Recipe chicken) and get to paint a new portrait of the colonel.

One last twist: The artist will be using paint into which KFC has blended the secret 11 ingredients.