Sunday, September 26, 2010

What's Up? Chicken Butt!

This is a stock answer I've used to have fun with nieces, nephews, children of friends and drunk people at the bar for years. It's a joke, and admittedly, a bad one. But it's funny once in a while.

Now KFC is putting ads on the backsides of female college students. It's a joke, and I claim, an ad which is in bad taste. But it's funny not at all and is badvertising in the strictest sense of the word.



Now, I'm all for advertising where your target audience is likely to see the ad, but I think this pushes the limits and is only trying to make news, not do good advertising.

The ad has a picture of the Colonel and says "Double Down." That's the extent of it.

I'm sure it was Harland Sanders' dream when he built his chicken empire to have his likenes on the derriers of liberal arts students across the country.

Guys in their late teens and early twenties are the ones most like to buy this culinary gem. So KFC its product where they feel the audience is looking.

But I think the ad is disjointed. I'll explain. Let's take a look at this morsel.


The awkwardly named Double Down is two chicken breasts with bacon, cheese and sauce jammed in between. No bun. It's bunless. The advertise on the asses of young women, targeting young men. Get it?

Neither do I. I think it's creating a stir just for the sake of getting the name of this thing in the news. The medium overwhelms the message.

While it goes just far enough to create a stir, I think the campaign misses an opportunity. if it wants to objectify the female anatomy, wouldn't it make more sense to advertise this sammich on the front of their t-shirt rather than the back of their pants?

I'm just saying...