The Deal Un-Thought: KFC and Free Meals

The idea of a free meal, whatever the quality, always has force. In a society where jobs are being lost more quickly than they are being replaced; in a world where food prices are volatile and often rising, an advertisement for a free feed is worth its weight of gold. Even if it emanates from Kentucky Fried Chicken.

It should be little surprise that a corporate giant like KFC decided to opt for the notion of bread, with perhaps more than its fair share of a circus. Panem et circenses, as the saying goes from the Roman satirist Juvenal, with its sense of forfeiting responsibility and sound policy. The corporate sector has lost a huge fan club, with complicit government officials happy to abdicate social responsibility in favour of market gains. Nothing like gratis chicken meals (‘healthy’ ones at that) to stay the rot and resurrect corporate goodwill for the public.

Enter the KFC coupon, available from a website aptly named ‘UnthinkKFC.com’. ‘Free 2 pc Kentucky Grilled Chicken meal.’ The recipient is promised two pieces of grilled chicken, at the discretion of the manager, two individual sides and a biscuit. The offer’s validity, according to the coupon available for printing, is from May 5 to May 19, but exclusive of Mother’s Day. (Mothers, it seems, don’t need free KFC meals.) It also had to be printed by a certain time: 10 the evening of Wednesday.

The company in time was wishing that it had ‘un-thought’ its offer. The high priestess of promotions, Oprah Winfrey, who creates social phenomena in the United States my merely uttering a few words, endorsed the offer on her program. The offer was also featured prominently on her website. The masses, with bellies eager for a free meal on download, rushed and queued, overwhelming various outlets in the country. Within 24 hours of the announcement, almost 11 million coupons had been printed.

By Thursday, the generosity of the food giant had well and truly evaporated. Having advertised the offer with fanfare, officials were now turning customers back, refusing to accept the coupon. Chicken supplies were apparently running thin. The next day, KFC President Roger Eaton was eating his words before Oprah, betraying a certain dottiness in what he termed the ‘chicken caper’. The company had ‘had a very big projection of numbers on this, but not in our wildest imagination could we believe the response we’ve gotten.’

Eaton is evidently not brimming with much imagination on this score. In this climate, people will eat food resembling worn leather and cardboard in numbers as long as they believe it is ‘free’. ‘Health’ has very little to do with it, even if an assortment of experts have suggested Oprah’s personal battle against an expanding waistline and her endorsement of a ‘healthier’ product made a difference. This is hardly a time for gourmandizing and nutritional squeamishness.

Having found itself in an uncomfortable position, the company has instructed all those at locations to pass out forms promising a free meal at some later date, accompanied by gratis soft drink. That’s put pay to the healthy aspect of it, in any case.

In the end, KFC found that it could barely provide the bread, but certainly the thronging circus. As one disappointed customer, Shannon Edwards, put it to a CNN affiliate station, ‘I have to go to McDonald’s now.’

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

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