23 Jul 09 KFC – How a Great Product can Outshine Mediocre Marketing

A recent Ad Age report (http://adage.com/article?article_id=137962) discusses how KFC in light of it’s recent Grilled Chicken un-think Oprah coupon blunder has actually caused Marketing Analysts to un-think their predictions of failure for the chain.

They thought telling a customer to un-think everything a brand usually stands for and go for something new and seemingly unrelated to southern home cooking was incorrect and doomed from the start. However, they now have a 3% increase in same store sales and positive numbers on repeat customers for the grilled chicken. In fact the article states that they are outperforming the entire fast food industry by 1% Why is that?

Truth is, it’s just a great product that the increasingly heath conscious and budget conscious consumer wanted. As long as KFC got the word out that this was available people were ready to try it. If you have a truly great product, even if you have some Marketing mistakes or nay-sayers, as long as you get the word out there and get people talking and walking to try the product it will succeed. However, if the product sucks and even if you have the best marketing, most likely it won’t do well for long once people catch wind of this. Always strive to come out with an awesome product/service that will not only get people talking but get people coming back. An 85% repeat rate for KFC is awesome and i hope more fast food companies start to un-think a bit and cater to this type of consumer.

Tags: advertising, AimOne Marketing, KFC, Marketing, Oprah, Sarah Lipkin