KFC President Roger Eaton “sowwy” for screwing up free grilled chicken offer.
You will remember the Oprah free chicken promotion from earlier in the week, in which the TV mogul backed a promotion from KFC where people could download a coupon and get their grilled roadkill on.
Well, it seems that the promotion was a success and a failure in equal measure. All in all, I would argue it was a mammoth supply and demand comprehension fail/ PR fail.
While you could say that many hundreds of thousands of people going to Oprah.com and getting their coupon was an indicator of huge success, the failure comes from the announcement today that the promotion has been pulled - as in NO more free chicken for now at least – and the coupons are non-redeemable at this precise moment in time (the Senior bods advise people to go into their nearest participating branch and ask for more information).
The consensus from groups/ commenters and message boards (yes, there is an Oprah message board) is that if or when KFC allow people to redeem coupons, the dates on which they were allowed to do so could be staggered. The corporate people say to “email KFC.PublicRelations@KFC.com with any problems concerning your KFC coupon.”
The information I have been able to gather points to several things; the corporate people underestimated the power of Lady O and did not prepare enough supply for their chains, they also did not give store owners any/ enough forewarning, and the real kicker is that some franchises were screwed over all together and had to pay for all the food given away on their behalf.
KFC used their official YouTube page to apologise and the video is shown above.
I was watching TV today when this commercial came on and I was shocked shitless. This is so wrong.
Girl, did you get your free chicken in time???
[...] The heads of KFC underestimated Oprah’s reach. Idiots. (amygrindhouse) [...]
Nope.
First thing I saw when I turned my TV on this afternoon was this commercial…and I was plannong on going to redeem my copupon tonight. They apparently underestimated the power of Oprah, free food, and chicken! lol
am i the only one who finds it strange tht the head KFC guy seems to be Australian?
Oh noes honey, sorry you missed out too!!!
It was a mistake to underestimate the power of this combination, so damn foolish of them. The head guy is South African BTW not an Aussie (the Consumerist people didn’t get the accent either – guess it does not fall well on an American ear)
[...] The Oprah riots, dissected (AmyGrindhouse) [...]
[...] KFC unable to force feed enough chickens to satisfy Oprah’s ravenous following (Amy Grindhouse) [...]
[...] 7 – Man apologises for Oprah’s KFC blunder in a sinister accent – Amygrindhouse [...]
Trust me – this was all planned to ensure they got the biggest and longest possible news coverage.
Writing off Oprah and KFC
Both are overrated and you are well shot, Daddy!