KFC’s Double Down A marketing success

In April 12th, KFC launched a sensational addition to its menu——The double down. In Canada, the sandwich quickly became KFC’s best-selling new menu item ever, quickly selling over 350,000 sandwiches in less than 10 days.

While McDonalds is selling healthy salads in their fastfood restaurants, KFC is positioning itself as a real fastfood brand. KFC attracts chicken lovers with the meatiest sandwich creation ever——two 100 percent all white meat fried chicken filets topped with cheese, bacon and the Colonel’s Sauce. Unlike the traditional fastfood, it has a unique selling point as its TV commercial describes:”so much 100-per-cent premium chicken, we didn’t have room for a bun.”

Is it ethical? You will probably say no without thinking. But here’s an interesting phenomenon that totally challenges our knowledge learnt in class. “You create something that’s almost illegal and then there’s more demand for it.” Richard Michon, a marketing professor at Ryerson. Besides the product’s points of difference and innovative features we can perceive, Double Down’s negative publicity is also a major cause of the marketing success. People talk about it and make funny videos online; nutritionists cry and newspapers make criticism…Everything is actually following KFC’s “360 degree” marketing strategy——capitalizing social media for free.

Reference:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/health/852740/new-burger-has-fried-chicken-bun
http://www.thestar.com/article/882437–kfc-s-double-down-sets-canadian-sales-record
http://www.kfc.com/promos/commercial_doubledown.asp’http://www.kfc.com/promos/commercial_doubledown.asp’