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KFC Turns to Web with Rejected Ad

Written on
Mar 3, 2006 
Author
Sarah Novotny  |
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KFC Turns to Web with Rejected Ad

Visits to the Kentucky Fried Chicken’s website to redeem a $1 sandwich for free have spiked after ABC TV rejected the commercial, citing FCC regulations on subliminal advertising. KFC’s commercial targets TiVo users who are encouraged to replay the ad in slow motion to find a hidden code to redeem the free sandwich on KFC’s website.

According to Adage, as of today the number of people who have visited the web site to redeem their sandwich has spiked from 11,000 entries, after the first spot aired, to more than 70,000 entries.

A KFC spokeswoman explained the unexpected publicity to Adage.com, “It was a PR-buzz idea years ago, but technology wasn’t around to make it work. It definitely played off the consumer who is tech-savvy and loves to play games… We thought it would be great to take our existing 30-second commercial and make it an interactive commercial.” KFC’s parent company Yum! Brands is well knows for utilizing a buzz-marketing strategy and for creating far reaching publicity stunts that generate attention.





Reader Comments.

Great marketing idea – however it does bring up the issue of how this sort of advertising (esp the subliminal element) will trickle into mainstream media in the future and the arguments against it.

Posted by Hotelguru | 5:26 am on August 21, 2006.

I think this is a very creative idea to combat the “TIVO, fast forwared past the commercial” problem. Advertisers pay to have their products viewed and viewers benefit by having broadcast tv for free. This sounds like a win-win to me. If you don’t want to play, FF. Bubliminal messages are illegal. They just need to modify the format of the commercial to fit the law. (list items backwards mabye ?!?)

Posted by Charles | 3:07 pm on October 1, 2007.

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