Latest TV spots for KFC send strong message about the brand

Nation's Restaurant News, July 5, 2004 by Gregg Cebrzynski

Let's forget about that KFC campaign of last fall, which tried to position fried chicken as a low-fat food alternative.

It should not have aired, and the Federal Trade Commission smote KFC for running the campaign. KFC promised--no fingers crossed--not to do something like that again.

Let's focus instead on KFC's most recent TV spots from Foote Cone & Belding of Chicago, because they're good. They're really good.

KFC shed the tag line "You've Gotta KFC What's Cookin'" in favor of "Chicken Capital USA." That switch in itself is a vast improvement. Everybody already knew what was cookin': fried chicken.

The new campaign adheres to the fundamental approach of staying true to the brand and the product, giving consumers a reason to try the product and entertaining viewers along the way.

It says emphatically: This is what KFC is all about.

The first ad in the campaign is a spiffy little number, using Country-Western theme music and quick camera cuts to show a demographically diverse group of people--truckers, football players, hot chicks - eating the product.

The spot opens on a guy wearing a T-shirt that reads "I'm In the Colonel's Army" and cuts to a kid eating chicken while the Country-Western crooner sings, "Left wing, right wing, it tastes the same to me." The kid has a T-shirt with that slogan on it. The crooner pretty much sings all the slogans that appear in the spot, such as "1 march to the beat of my own drumstick," "There'll be one less man at the salad bar tonight" and "The bucket stops here."

And then a title appears on the screen. It's simple, but it sends a powerful brand message: "Fried with pride."

Imagine that, taking pride in the product. Last fall's campaign with its healthful-alternative theme seemed to make excuses for offering a fried product.

C'mon, it's fried chicken. There's nothing wrong with fried chicken. It's a legal product in every state of the Union.

The next spot in the new campaign was "Drive-Thru Diva," which showed said diva and others buying KFC's new roasted-chicken products. The energy level was not quite so high as in the initial ad, but the brand and product message was just as clear. In this case, however, it made roasted chicken look just as appealing as fried chicken and was an attempt to get more women into the door.

Great idea: Broaden the customer base or try to, with a new product and good advertising.

Another spot, which broke in early June, is a retail effort for the Dale Earnhardt Jr. chicken bucket. KFC partnered with his Chance 2 Motorsports team to sponsor six races in the NASCAR Busch Series.

Retail ads usually don't offer much creativity, but this one is different. It's shot well, the sales pitch is strong and Earnhardt comes across as a regular guy who likes to eat chicken between winning races.

And the bucket showing him in full racing getup is pretty cool.

The new campaign is so different in tone, selling proposition and production values from the first one -so different from previous lackluster campaigns, too -that I wondered whether my enthusiasm for it was driven by my yearning for some good advertising to come out of KFC again, that I would like anything if it were even marginally good.

It's better than marginally good, however, showcasing an old brand with contemporary images that make the brand image a lot livelier than it has been in the past.

This campaign is just what KFC needed: presenting fried chicken as fun to eat--the fat calories be damned.