KFC mumbo-jumbo

I will confess, I have a major soft spot for KFC. No, I have not tried the Double Down, (I do value my cholesterol level), but when someone says fried chicken to me, I think KFC.

Saw this recent sub-section on an Ad Age piece about yet another re-launch announcing yet another new tag-line for KFC, "So Good".

" Mr. Benito said the tagline is the result of the combined efforts of Ogilvy, Sydney; Bartle Bogle Hegarty, London; and DraftFCB, Chicago. The tagline emerged in focus groups, when lapsed customers tasted the product and said, "It's so good." But in addition to tapping nostalgia, it also provides an umbrella that works for promoting grilled chicken, crispy fried strips or a value meal.

The chain is, moreover, shifting its focus from a "demographic to a psychographic," Mr. Benito said. Eating a bucket of chicken has always been a group activity, he said, so now KFC is reaching out to "socially connected people who are trans-generational." That means a teen on Facebook or her mother who reads blogs." "

 I don't know where to begin on unpacking this. Work born out of committee perhaps? The social aspect of a bucket of chicken? Trans-generational? Oy-vey!

You know what, pushing a chain as big as KFC can't always be easy. I hope this 5th new direction for KFC in 5 years works out, but reading this article, I am not hopeful.

I'm off to try and find a Tower Zinger Burger, still the greatest fast food invention ever.

Oct_09_Cousins_halloween.3GP

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY

One output of the global economic crisis has been the willingness of desperate media owners to approve previously unthinkable media buys. Case in point: A few weeks back the Los Angeles Times allowed the movie Alice in Wonderland to take over the entire front page of the newspaper. Not a cover wrap—the actual news content of the paper for that day was obscured by Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. This buy makes it pretty clear that if you’ve got the cash, anything goes.

Last year another movie, Star Trek, persuaded ABC to let the Starship Enterprise make a flyby through the opening credits of the TV show Lost. From a traditional buying perspective, sneaking into the opening credits of a show is unheard of. (J.J. Abrams has clout for sure).

GLASS HALF FULL?

So, is this new openness by media owners a good thing? Unfortunately, more often than not it is probably bad for our business. 

At a macro level the encroachment of advertising everywhere has a detrimental effect on people’s liking and trust of advertising. The more surfaces we slap ads on, the more consumers seek to filter out all marketing.

Perhaps more corrosive, though, is the long-term impact on media brands themselves. Harper’s Bazaar magazine recently ran a lavish 40-page story featuring the same four celebrities who were also fronting a major new Estée Lauder campaign. The “story” was indistinguishable from regular Lauder advertising. (Lauder ran ads featuring the same models in the issue as well.)  What does it say about the Harper’s brand and its credibility when its content is so clearly for sale? As the walls between ads and content get ever more porous, the negative sentiment for advertising is dragging down the quality content that attracted advertisers in the first place.

NOT GETTING BETTER

Unfortunately, the push for ever more places to insert ads is not going to let up anytime soon. The media-buying side of the house tends to equate buying a new space with being creative and innovative. The moment a new technology appears, media teams seek to exploit it as an ad medium. (We’ve already had ads on the Kindle, and we would bet a lot of money that a bunch of agencies are now working on how they can insert advertising into the iPad).

Within the Communication Strategy group at GSP, we don’t believe that finding new ways to irritatingly interrupt people’s days is good innovation. Poor disruption only increases negative consumer reaction. If The Los Angeles Times keeps selling its front page as they did last week, the newspaper will lose subscribers.

THE BIG ISSUE

The critical question we need to ask when considering out-of-the-box placements is not can we buy something, but should we? 

We always want to enable positive brand interactions, something that engages and preferably enhances the consumer experience. We also know that consumers are not stupid. If the strategic link, the reason why the brand in question does what it does, is crystal clear and enhances the experience, consumers will welcome it. As ever, we all have to remember that the only opinions that really matter are consumers’.

GOOD INNOVATION

An example of a good disruption/innovation? From the GSP portfolio, for the launch of Wario Land: Shake It! (a Wii game), we achieved a world-first by having the action within our YouTube video spill over into the rest of the YouTube page. Never been done before, surprising and categorically tied to the concept of the game. Consumers loved it. ( http://www.youtube.com/wariolandshakeit2008 )

So, for Alice in Wonderland, what might have been a smarter solution? What if all the front-page stories had, instead of being obscured by Johnny Depp, actually been rewritten by his character of the Mad Hatter? Might that have been entertaining and witty, offering something of value to the reader that they might even share with others?

FINAL WORD

As we generate incredible media ideas, as much as we always want to say “yes we can” to pull them off, we also need to check that consumers will respond with a “glad you did.”

Brad Pitt trims his beard! (Wow).

A while back US Weekly started sending me a daily e-mail update. I think my local rep signed me up for it. Honesty, I an not a big US Weekly guy. Anyway, today I finally made the effort to unsubscribe. I was literally shocked that they thought Brad Pitt trimming his beard was news. I am even more shocked to think that even the most slavish celebrity hound would care either. So, I guess the lesson is either never underestimate people's passions, not matter how dumb they may seem. Or, as a media owner don't devalue your brand with BS. If you've got nothing to say, don't.

There is a chance the headline is a joke. If it is, it is a poor one.

Email to blog

This is a test of a blog post sent from my phone. Ain't tech grand? (When it works).
Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

Hyper Island

I am doing a 3-day training course run by Hyper Island. Hit and miss so far, but a few great sessions. Liked Mark Comerford on the anthropological effects of the digital revolution. You can follow Mark on Twitter as well: http://twitter.com/markmedia