KFC advert in Australia offends some Americans

[Furcifer]

Well of course that's just business - which many of those that are apparently up in arms about this keep forgetting - this is not about "forcing USA values or attitudes" onto anyone, it's all about the bottom line.

KFC never took a hit to the bottom line over the ad. They reacted to the threat of it. The tenuous nature of the threat and the reasons cited by Americans for pulling the ad are actually what's under question. There's also the question of whether KFC's Amerocentric reaction while trying to establish itself in the World market is a sound business move.

 

[Wildy]

The client (KFC Australia) will select an advertising agency to do their campaign (I can't find any info on who that is for the "Summer of Cricket" campaign). They do all of the campaign, including print, etc... everything.

The Agency will then select a Production Company to make just the TV Commercial. No doubt they'll also employ a graphic design company to design posters, magazine ads, billboards, and so forth. They might contract a number of companies to do different aspects of the campaign.

Generally if you have a series of TV commercials, one company will do all of them as a single shoot, but it isn't necessarily the case.

The Director and Producer of the commercial (who work for the Production Company) will be the ones making initial decisions on casting and so forth, with either Agency or Client staff (or both) approving them.

The degree of oversight can vary enormously. I've done TV Commercials where there was no one from the Client on set the entire time of the shoot, and the Agency just sat in their little tent yacking on the phone, leaving the Director to do their own thing. I've worked on other commercials where either Agency or Client (or Both!) were heavily involved in the shoot and the Director had very little actual creative control.

The good Clients tend to let the Agency get on with what they do best, and the good Agencies tend to led the Production team get on with what they do best.

Thanks. I had just assumed that they had gone to an outside company (but it seems that nobody is admitting that they made it) but people were talking as if KFC had their own in house group.

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

It sure is. Check the internet and see what people are actually saying about this ad. Apparently people don't take kindly to the notion of "checking in" with the US before they make any moves. The people bitching about the ad in the US clearly think that the World should cater to their insecurities instead of educating themselves on other cultures. It's very Amerocentric.

I wonder if you could express that as a percentage? Something like ...

(people bitching about the ad in the US / 300,000,000) x 100 = % Amerocentric because of this ad.

It would be very helpful while discussing just how much of an issue this really is.

I'm personally calling for a boycott of Kentucky Fried Chicken until the commercial is reinstated and they apologize for not considering what this says about the Australian people.

I think that this is a dandy idea. I'll even help, since the nearest KFC has the temerity to be such an inconvenient drive away. That, IMO, is at least as egregious.

Out of curiosity, have you expressed your displeasure to KFC Aus. yet? Do you need me to re-post the link?

It'll probably help your boycott if they ... you know ... know about it.

Take a look at what's being said on the internet. There are quite a few people implying that Australians are racist and citing this commercial as an example. Pulling the ad only serves to foster this notion.

I wonder if you could express that as a percentage? Something like ...

(people implying that Australians are racist and citing this commercial as an example / total number of people using the internet) x 100 = % people implying that Australians are racist because of this ad.

It would be very helpful while discussing just how much of an issue this really is.

I wouldn't want anyone to be able to suggest that you are making broad generalizations based on insufficient data.

 

[quadraginta]

I accept the current business situation, what I was wondering was if there was any way to address the root cause of the situation, which appears to be a blinkered worldview. That would clearly not be the responsibility of the advertisers; but, given the apparent furore, is there anyone who could take the opportunity to raise cultural awareness?

Anyone who expressed their concerns to the advertisers would certainly help raise the cultural awareness of the advertisers.

Seeing as how it was just such an action which began this silliness in the first place it could be that providing some support for the other side of the discussion would help them make a more reasoned response in the future.

KFC Aus. has a "Contact us" web page.

Just sayin'.

 

[lionking]

Anyone who expressed their concerns to the advertisers would certainly help raise the cultural awareness of the advertisers.

Seeing as how it was just such an action which began this silliness in the first place it could be that providing some support for the other side of the discussion would help them make a more reasoned response in the future.

KFC Aus. has a "Contact us" web page.

Just sayin'.

I might be misunderstanding, but are you suggesting that some of us should email KFC and advise them how not to make this "mistake" again?

 

[Furcifer]

I think that this is a dandy idea. I'll even help, since the nearest KFC has the temerity to be such an inconvenient drive away. That, IMO, is at least as egregious.

Out of curiosity, have you expressed your displeasure to KFC Aus. yet? Do you need me to re-post the link?

It'll probably help your boycott if they ... you know ... know about it.

2 pissed off JREF's= outcry. I expect a response any minute now.

I did contact KFC about my boycott. Here in Canada and the US. Didn't do Australia though.

Incidentally, the thing I found funny was the US website. The website allows for the input of a Canadian "postal code" instead of a US "zipcode". Unfortunately the programmers didn't account for this, when I put in my postal code I got an error that says "Error: invalid zipcode". I used a zipcode I know from Detroit, 48092.

 

[quadraginta]

I might be misunderstanding, but are you suggesting that some of us should email KFC and advise them how not to make this "mistake" again?

Yeah, that was the idea.

I hope it isn't too out of line.

Seeing as how the only real culprits I can pin down in this affair are the KFC Aus. execs who capitulated to some undetermined amount of alleged outrage and pulled the ad, I thought sharing the outrage in response to pulling it with them might do as much good as it does here.

Silly idea, I guess.

 

[GreyICE]

Are you saying that racial issues (and sensibilities) in Australia are equivalent to those in the US?

Are you saying that perhaps that Australia doesn't have any, so of course they'd be totally unpredictable to an Australian, something one would never even look for or consider?

 

[drkitten]

Indeed, I pointed out a while back that the face associated with KFC is white.

Is there any way to address the imbalance, that people outside the US are supposed to learn about American cultural stereotypes, while the US folks are not expected to understand that some black people are not African Americans?

Certainly. Develop your economy to the point where US folks need to worry about you because you're a substantial market.

The imbalance is primarily economic; the Australian GNP is about 5% of the US GNP. This makes it reasonable for a multinational corporation to care about 5% as much about Australian public opinion as it does about American public opinion.

 

[drkitten]

is there anyone who could take the opportunity to raise cultural awareness?

Not in the business world. There is such a thing as fiduciary responsibility.

KFC is in the chicken business, not the "raising cultural awareness" business. If you think you can open and franchise 15,000 sites in cities world-wide to raise cultural awareness, go ahead. But you'll need to do it on your own dime, and that of your own stockholders, because the stockholders at YUM prefer KFC to sell food.

 

[drkitten]

Thanks. I had just assumed that they had gone to an outside company (but it seems that nobody is admitting that they made it)

I can certainly understand why. Any company that does extensive business in the States wouldn't see this commercial as a good addition to the portfolio.

I suspect the ad company wants to bury this just as badly as KFC does.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

I know everyone is just ignoring my points, but at the risk of getting ignored again, as I have already pointed out the USA is not their most important market.

YUM! Foods have saturated the US Market and they expect zero growth there. They're focusing on foreign markets for future growth - particularly India and China - I see that they've set KFC India the target of matching Pizza Hut 50/50 for market share (currently Pizza Hut is the big YUM! Foods chain in India). YUM! Foods expects to open 45 new KFC restaurants this year alone in India.

There's a solid argument to make that allowing American attitudes to interfere with foreign markets is actually a very bad business move for YUM! Foods, and is a bad precedent to set as foreign markets contribute an increasingly high percentage of their total revenue. Currently there are twice as many foreign KFC stores as there are domestic ones, so while any individual country may not compete with the US market, if you try force US values on your foreign markets as a matter of principle you're going to alienate your entire foreign market, not just the individual countries where specific issues arise.

Quoted for drkitten.

 

[Darat]

Quoted for drkitten.

I doubt that drkitten has any disagreement with that.

 

[drkitten]

I know everyone is just ignoring my points, but at the risk of getting ignored again, as I have already pointed out the USA is not their most important market.

YUM! Foods have saturated the US Market and they expect zero growth there.

Don't confuse growth with income.

While YUM may be expecting higher growth in the BRIC world, that's a long-term plan. In terms of this quarter's bottom line, China has only about half the KFC stores that the US has, which means they contribute only about half the current revenue. This quarter, the US market is still the most important market -- but that may change over the next decade or so.

Or to put it another way, while they are indeed focusing on foreign markets for future growth, you can't bank "future growth." The money, TODAY, is in the USA -- and if the US market takes a beating, they may not be able to finance the growth they want in BRIC.

There's a solid argument to make that allowing American attitudes to interfere with foreign markets is actually a very bad business move for YUM! Foods, and is a bad precedent to set as foreign markets contribute an increasingly high percentage of their total revenue.

I disagree. This isn't "interference" in any meaningful sense. KFC-Aus had the entire universe of advertisements to pick from, and made a bad pick. But this doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of good picks available that would have satisfied both KFC-Aus and KFC-US.

I mean, if the ad agency came to me and said "well, we could really only think of one ad that we could use to place your product -- and it will draw massive protests in the United States. But it's literally the only way that your product can possible be sold! Honestly!" --- I'd fire the ad agency.

As I wrote earlier, "are you really saying that there's no way of suggesting that your product is good other than feeding it to a group of uniformly black people and having them enjoy it?"

It would be another thing if this were actually meaningful interference. If Chick-Fil-A, for example, decided to open a restaurant in Dubai, but still insisted on playing Christian rock on the PA and closing every Sunday, I could understand the complaint. Forcing someone actively to do something (especially something the locals don't want) is likely to tick people off.

But if this advert had never been written/aired, I don't think any Australians would be crying over the lost opportunity to see West Indian cricket fans eat chicken. If KFC-Aus had had the sense to pull the ad prior to airing, no one would even have known about it -- or cared. The ad agency would simply have come up with another spot in the same style and the whole teapot would have remained tempest-free.

 

[Wildy]

Are you saying that perhaps that Australia doesn't have any, so of course they'd be totally unpredictable to an Australian, something one would never even look for or consider?

You know as well as I do that lionking was not saying that. Perhaps you should answer his question?

Certainly. Develop your economy to the point where US folks need to worry about you because you're a substantial market.

The imbalance is primarily economic; the Australian GNP is about 5% of the US GNP. This makes it reasonable for a multinational corporation to care about 5% as much about Australian public opinion as it does about American public opinion.

That is quite possibly the dumbest thing that I've ever heard. That honestly sounds like the quickest way to lose your market share.

I can certainly understand why. Any company that does extensive business in the States wouldn't see this commercial as a good addition to the portfolio.

I suspect the ad company wants to bury this just as badly as KFC does.

I don't think the ad company works in the US. You do know that Australia does have their own advertising companies right?

 

[drkitten]

That is quite possibly the dumbest thing that I've ever heard. That honestly sounds like the quickest way to lose your market share.

Er,.... that's kind of the point. Losing market share in Australia is not that big a deal if by doing so you protect your market share in a much larger market. If KFC could triple its market share (and sales) in the States (or in China) simply by cutting KFC-Aus loose and setting it adrift, it would do so in a heartbeat.

That doesn't mean you should cut KFC-Aus loose on a whim. But if push comes to shove, Australia has only 5% of the money and therefore 5% of the votes that the USA does.

I don't think the ad company works in the US.

No, but they do demonstrably design ads for multinationals -- and they presumably want to keep doing this, because they pay better than ads for the local deli or car dealership.

And one of the things multinationals want from their ad agencies is sensitivity to large-scale concerns, like "how will this play in our single largest market if it gets onto YouTube?"

You do know that Australia does have their own advertising companies right?

That's right. They have a lot of advertising companies. Some of which are even good enough to write ads that will be effective Down Under without ticking off potential customers in the States. Which is why the ad agency that wrote this particular gem doesn't want to publicize this mistake, because they don't want to lose clients to those other companies.

 

[Architect]

I see, so it's not the depiction that's the problem but rather that it offends American sensibilities......hard luck, however, if America uses a racial stereotype that your culture object to, unless you've got a significant market share.

 

[Wildy]

Er,.... that's kind of the point. Losing market share in Australia is not that big a deal if by doing so you protect your market share in a much larger market. If KFC could triple its market share (and sales) in the States (or in China) simply by cutting KFC-Aus loose and setting it adrift, it would do so in a heartbeat.

But do we know that KFC would lose market share in the US? If they seriously didn't care about Australia why didn't they just say that all Australians are racist and that was why they made the ad?

You'd protect your share in the US market and if your stores are competing with something Australian-y food place you'd probably win out right?

That doesn't mean you should cut KFC-Aus loose on a whim. But if push comes to shove, Australia has only 5% of the money and therefore 5% of the votes that the USA does.

Votes?

And one of the things multinationals want from their ad agencies is sensitivity to large-scale concerns, like "how will this play in our single largest market if it gets onto YouTube?"

So clearly then the head office in the US should be the ones making the ads for the Australian market rather then KFC Australia.

 

[drkitten]

But do we know that KFC would lose market share in the US?

Do we know that? Of course not. We don't have access to the complaints KFC received, nor do we have any expectation of getting access. We have to make certain assumptions here, among them that KFC (like any successful company) knows what it's doing.

Does KFC know that? Of course not. They're not omniscient and can't predict the future with perfect accuracy. But, again, we have to make the assumption that they know what they're doing.

Do they believe that they will lose market share if they don't respond to accusations of racism? Almost certainly. Otherwise, they wouldn't have pulled the damn ad in the first place. And I certainly have no problem with believing that they understand their business and their market better than some random people on an internet forum.

If they seriously didn't care about Australia why didn't they just say that all Australians are racist and that was why they made the ad?

Because that would have unnecessarily ticked off the rational Aussies. Pulling the ad satisfies the American market and doesn't tick off the rational Aussies. Since the irrational Aussies are not going to be satisfied by anything, there's nothing KFC can do about them.

 

[drkitten]

I see, so it's not the depiction that's the problem but rather that it offends American sensibilities......hard luck, however, if America uses a racial stereotype that your culture object to, unless you've got a significant market share.

Yup. Such is the way of the world. "Money talks and bull**** walks."