Jesse and I used to eat a lot of KFC. I’m not exactly proud of this. But in our first year of marriage, I was working a high-stress full-time job, and Jesse was finishing up his last year of school, and then the car accident happened and three days a week we were driving across Orlando at rush hour to my chiropractor appointments. So, cooking dinner at home became a little tricky. About that time, KFC came out with their “Twister Wrap,” which is basically a tortilla wrapped around chicken, lettuce, tomato, and some kind of spicy mayo-like substance. We both liked it. It was cheap and convenient.
When we moved to North Carolina, we tried to replicate our Orlando KFC experiences at local KFCs, but to no avail. They’re just not that good up here. The food usually tastes a little old, a little stale, and Jesse was bummed they didn’t have mac and cheese as a side. So, we moved on to other dining options. And then we tried to revamp our way of eating–cooking at home a majority of the time, paying attention to what we were eating, and so on. Not that we’re perfect by any means, but at least we’ve improved.
But then KFC and Oprah embarked on what would become an absolute disaster. They offered free meals to promote their new grilled chicken. And then they ran out of chicken because they “didn’t anticipate” the “overwhelming response.” Um, KFC? It’s Oprah. And we’re in a recession. And you just offered people an entire meal for free. And you didn’t expect there would be millions of people finding out about this?
So we never got a chance to redeem our coupons (heck, we don’t even get the channel The Oprah Show comes on, and we heard about the promo in plenty of time to download ours), but now KFC is offering a “rain check” after initially saying they were abandoning the promotion because they’d go out of business or something. Although we were ready to write KFC off for good, we’ll probably cave and get the rain checks because, well…it’s a free meal. And even though it’s basically MSG-coated chicken pieces, it’s still free, and that’s hard to pass up right now.
The funniest parts of this?
1. That people think because it’s grilled, it’s healthy. Um, read the ingredients. It’s not.
2. That KFC is now claiming that so many people wanted to use their coupons because of how awesome their new grilled chicken is.
3. That the KFC CEO has an Australian accent (or whatever–all I know is I was hoping for a Southern drawl and it’s decidedly not a Southern drawl). That’s just plain messed up. Watch this.
8 Comments
All the restaurants doing these free promotions seem surprised at the response. Like you said, we’re in a recession. Duh! If it makes you feel any better, I have tasted this grilled chicken, and it was not that good. “Edible” is how I would describe it. I don’t normally eat at KFC, and the only reason I had it was because it was served at a graduation party I attened (kind of weird, if you ask me). But I do understand the desire to get your free meal. We went to Starbucks to get our free coffee for voting last November, which was very useful in staying up to watch the results
Yeah, I have a hard time believing they didn’t anticipate the response, and if they hadn’t bungled their own response to the situation, I’d say they planned it this way. Hey, they’re getting a ton of publicity from this whole thing (probably more than they would have gotten just from doing the coupon alone). I’m not sure it’s very good publicity, but you know what they say about that…
I didn’t understand this whole grilled KFC Oprah thing either. Because that stuff is definitely NOT healthy. Ingredients aside, it’s just as greasy and yucky looking as the fried stuff, except it has grill lines on it. ANd I also didn’t understand why Oprah was promoting it. Isn’t she trying to lose weight and encouraging others to do the same? I thought that was the theme of her entire season. Plus, KFC genetically modifies their chickens and raises them even more abusively than most other abusive factory farms. So it’s not just bad for your body, it’s bad for your karma too.
I know…it makes no sense on so many levels.
But, as you said, I heard about it before it was even downloadable. (My friends were chain-texting the link.) And I don’t even have TV. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to have the kind of influence Oprah does….
Yeah, I don’t think I’d like that many people paying attention to me. I’m too mercurial and would get myself in big trouble.
Hilarious! I wasn’t quick enough with my coupon either , and I doubt I’ll be thorough enough to go through the rain-check process. Guess I won’t be trying KGC just yet. Thanks for sharing your fun thoughts! I love your blog.
Well, you’ve got until Tuesday to try for the rain check I think…not sure it’s worth the effort, though. I think KFC’s banking on a lot of people just giving up. Maybe that will pay off better than their gamble with the original coupon!