Bain Waves #46: Next Time, Better Unthink It Through (May 6, 2009)
Dan Bain
If you haven’t heard, Oprah’s giving away a bunch of KFC meals today. No, this isn’t her latest diet, it’s philanthropy. And this time, nobody has to pay taxes on it first!
Under the offer, every family (really, every IP address) is entitled to four coupons, each good for a two-piece grilled chicken meal between now and May 19. I wanted in on that action, so I went to Oprah’s URL at www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20090430-tows-kfc-coupon-download and was promptly directed to another URL.
The second one had a name more closely related to KFC. They’ve really been branding up the new slogan “Unthink what you thought about KFC” and tried to play on that. First, I’m not crazy about the new slogan; it seems like they’re just admitting they’ve always been bad for us. Then again, I’m unemployed and can’t find another marketing job, so what do I know?
What really killed me, though, was the URL itself. It’s www.unthinkfc.com -- notice anything odd about that? They were obviously going for a shorter version of their slogan, something like “Unthink KFC.” But guess what? In smushing the words together, they left one of the “k”s out of the URL.
So, what does that leave? “Unthin KFC.” That’s right, UNTHIN.
Now, I might not be employable in the marketing field at this time, but I was certainly able to discern why that particular word is a bad idea to associate with their food. If the whole purpose of their new slogan is to move people away from the image of KFC as fattening, they’ve just shot themselves in the talon, because they managed to call their chain “unthin” in their URL.
This is almost as bad as the old Kids Exchange debacle -- Kids Exchange is a consignment site where people can sell and buy children’s used items, as well as pay via work exchange. It involves kids and it involves exchange, but nobody thought about what it spells when you smush those two words together in a URL: www.kidsexchange.net. Hey, I’m not one to judge other’s lifestyles, but you ought to at least let a kid turn 18 before offering a service like that!
Oh, and by the way, I couldn’t get the coupon download/print mechanism to work right on my PC, so I tried it a second time. Nothing doing, it told me, since I had already hit the “Print” button once from this PC. Maybe that’s how they’re making the claim of being a healthier fast food restaurant -- they don’t actually provide the food. Think of it as getting “unfat.”
Meanwhile, Oprah, can I get a new offer? How about a marketing job?
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