Chain Leader

David Farkas

Questionable Tactics
February 27, 2007

Does anyone else find KFC’s recent marketing ploy unsettling? On Ash Wednesday, the giant chicken chain announced it had dispatched a letter to the Vatican inviting Pope Benedict XVI to declare holy KFC’s latest sandwich, the Fish Snacker.

“The company turned to Pope Benedict XVI, beseeching him to bestow his Papal blessing for this innovative new menu item,” went the press release in the stilted prose of a PR hack trying to sound like a church scribe.

I guess I get it. Catholics traditionally eat fish on Friday during Lent. If the pope blessed the 250-calorie sandwich, which costs 99 cents, the chain would drum up sales. That would be especially helpful in KFC’s largest and highly competitive markets like Los Angeles. More than 4 million Catholics call it home.

What’s more, it’s the company’s first seafood product. KFC has “chicken” in its name. It figures that some sort of major authority is needed to give the OK to fish. In short, this isn’t a job for Jasper White—even if he’d agreed to do it.

The unsettling part is a business’ appeal to a specific religion—as if the Catholic church has seafood expertise or considers deep-fried fish sacred. I don’t recall KFC officials asking Reverend Jerry Falwell of the 16-million-member Southern Baptist Convention to “bestow” his blessing on the Chicken Snacker, another deep-fried product. After all, aren’t Southerners fried-chicken experts?

Asking the pope to bless those who feed the hungry is one thing. Asking him to bless a product you’re going to charge the hungry for is quite another. And, blessings aside, I don’t buy it.

David Farkas
Senior Editor, Chain Leader

Posted by David Farkas on February 27, 2007 | Comments (0)