The Vitrue Social Media Index (SMI) was cited in a recent “MediaPost” article on the KFC promotion of their new Kentucky Grilled Chicken Meal. Huge star power from Oprah was pulled in to help announce the give-away of the new grilled meal. As “Ad Age” covered yesterday, the buzz generated was enormous and so was the demand. Last week the giveaway was the number one topic on Twitter.
KFC Grilled Chicken
KFC ranked #93 on the Vitrue 100 (top social brands of 2008 published this past January), while Oprah herself has one of the highest SMI scores we have seen - as of today she hits a score of 20,000. Take the intersection of these two powerhouses and you have a perfect storm.
As “Ad Age” details, the promotion was hard to implement due to sheer volume, although the brand doubled their expectations with Oprah’s endorsement. It seems some of the franchisees could have been more informed and better prepared for the rush. With over 4 million meals in two days and 6 million still outstanding, the brand had to pull down the promotion but is offering a rain check to those with a coupon.
So digging deeper there are a few interesting things to note.
First, social media has truly gone mainstream over the past few months – from Oprah issuing her first tweet, to Ashton and CNN’s race to 1 million followers on Twitter, to sportscasters and the TODAY show all having Twitter handles and many with robust Facebook presences. The power of celebrity endorsement in this new world is only magnified especially with a force like Oprah. Her endorsement of the KFC promotion was significant as her social presence is now huge (I received a Facebook update from her on the coupon for KFC on May 5 which was pretty cool).
Secondly, KFC could have used social media to be better footed for the event. Although KFC does have a Facebook page with over 174,000 fans, the brand could have used the backbone of this powerful platform to communicate with its fans about the upcoming promotion, request RSVPs and provide coupons. If KFC had individual stores rolling up to a corporate page with more details, we think they could have had a better idea of what to expect. This structure could have also helped with the communication to the franchisees themselves.
KFC does have an active Twitter presence (with over 2,298 followers) and has been fielding responses to its customers issues with the promotion, taking a proactive stance. However, their Facebook page does not have an active conversation from the brand and needs to engage these nearly 1 million fans who are hungry for conversation and engagement - give them the rewards for being your fans and set expectations all around in the process.
This event can be looked at in many ways but we feel this is a good problem to have - after all - irrelevance is the worst fate of any brand and KFC knows they have a passionate base.
