Kentucky Fried Chicken is the latest big name to find themselves in need of some heavy-duty crisis management. Their super promo, a partnership with Oprah designed to introduce America to their new grilled chicken, seemed destined for success. A story from The Consumerist details what went wrong.
What’s happening is that the franchised stores are not being reimbursed for the coupons. I was told that Oprah is backing corporate for the costs of the free chicken; franchise stores, if they participate at all, are simply giving away food and losing the money.
Their crisis prevention plan failed to take into account the enormous number of people who would respond to an offer for a free meal and the cost that involved for their franchisees, who were not being reimbursed. Even many of the corporate stores had halted the offer after only hours, having given away more food than they had been allocated.
KFC’s crisis response strategy so far has been to offer both rain checks (staggered to reduce impact on stores), and an online video apology. We’ll have to wait and see if this satisfies consumers or if they punish KFC for their poor planning.
JB
Jonathan Bernstein
www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com