Fried Chicken From the Chicken-hearted

I'm a fried chicken expert, Grade IV.

I've sampled and gorged every major franchised fried chicken — KFC, Popeye's, Bojangles, Church's, you name it. When somebody suggests, “Let's just pick up some fried chicken,” I react the way lesser gourmets react to Wolfgang Puck. In extremis, I even accept whatever odd concoction McDonald's is serving up under its “Chicken McNuggets” umbrella.

In a previous life I headed the advertising agency whose principal account was a now-defunct fried chicken-hawker, Chicken Unlimited…and I remember fondly one of the perks, a promotional card entitling the holder (often me) to two free pieces of fried chicken. Oh, those Glory Days!

So I've been interested, on a more than academic level, not only in the deterioration of KFC's competitive posture in the world of fried chicken but also the deterioration of KFC's advertising, which might be the catalyst behind that deterioration.

The good gray Colonel is long gone. Harlan Sanders was the child of a kinder, gentler time. He was born in 1890 and expired in 1980. His legacy is a huge chain of more than 11,000 red-and-white-striped fried chicken emporiums (yeah, I know perfect Latin requires “emporia” as a plural, but this is direct marketing).

No one who was then alive could have forgotten the original ad slogan that helped build the brand — “Finger-lickin' good.” (Chicken Unlimited had a TV ad showing a Sanders look-alike guy in a white suit saying, “Know why I lick my fingers? My chicken is so doggoned greasy I have to.” Shortly thereafter KFC introduced “extra crispy.”)

I also remember how puzzled I was with “America loves what the Colonel cooks”… a nondescript slogan that may have been the bellwether of the promotional downslide and typical of the fiddling with success that so many advertisers and their toady-agencies undertake too often…so often, in fact, that the undertaking disintegrates into the hands of a Chapter 11 undertaker.

Then we had an animated Colonel Sanders, a peculiar posthumous “Blithe Spirit” approach that made many of us uncomfortable. Maybe 50 years from now that approach won't have that eerie risen-from-the-grave effect. A secondary effect was trivializing the character, a semiprofessional, semipromotional move I felt just didn't convince anybody to buy Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Of late, KFC had “Seinfeld” alumnus Jason Alexander looking uncomfortable, presenting fried chicken to unwary passersby. Ugh. It reminded me of those repulsive commercials for a pizza chain a few years ago, using smug Dennis Miller.

Then, unbelievably, came a spate of commercials — replete with mice-type disclaimers paralleling those we see in the auto-lease ads — suggesting that fried chicken was a healthy food. Yeah, sure. I plan to live beyond age 100 not because of fried chicken but in spite of it. Low carbs can go their own way. I like extra crispy, and I'm not chickening out…although Popeye's “Spicy” is now at the top of my heap.

Well, guess what, Chicken-hearted fans: The whole playing field has changed. It isn't Kentucky Fried Chicken any more. KFC now stands for “Kitchen Fresh Chicken.” That's more a “Huh?” than an “Ugh.” Whose kitchen? Where else would somebody prepare chicken other than the kitchen? If they're desperately clinging onto the KFC acronym, how about “Kazakhstan Fried Chicken”? “Knee-Length Fried Chicken”? “Know-nothing Flatulent Chicken-ads”? “Keynesian Fields of Crapola”?

I'm told by people who compile such statistics that KFC spent well over $225 million for media advertising last year. During the company's “Finger-lickin' good” growth period, the ad budget was of course fractional…but then, KFC didn't have the challenge of trying to jam a nondescript slogan down the gullets of jaded prospects.

KFC isn't alone. As the total number of hamburgers sold approaches a trillion, McDonald's has to be wondering why it abandoned memorable advertising for unmemorable one-of-the-pack slogans. “I'm lovin' it”? Nah.

Wendy's, Burger King, Arby's — all these titans of Franchise Row seem to have forgotten why somebody might turn the steering wheel in their direction. That nasty word advertising seems to have supplanted the natural word salesmanship as the buzzword in brainstorming sessions. We remember “You deserve a break today”…but can't identify the current pitch. We've retained “Home of the Whopper” but don't have a clue about their current campaign, even five minutes after a spot, scheduled in saturation, has aired. We still laugh at “Where's the beef?” and wonder whether they're still advertising.

Books on advertising history point with reverence to Maxwell Sackheim's mail order ad for the Sherwin Cody School's “Do you make these mistakes in English?” whose 45-year run began in 1918…and John Caples' “They laughed when I sat down at the piano,” still being copied for computers and cookware today. Everybody knows the Caples line, which has endured for a couple of generations, unlike the company for which he wrote that line. You'd have to Google the quote to find out — the U.S. School of Music.

But even though we see ads headed, “They laughed when I sat down at the computer,” we're very much aware that nothing lasts as long as it once did. TV and the Web are burnout-speeders. OK, OK. Does that excuse nondescript advertising and marketing?

Obviously you don't think so. Proof? You're reading this.

HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS (www.herschellgordonlewis.com) is the principal of Lewis Enterprises in Fort Lauderdale, FL. He consults with and writes direct response copy for clients worldwide. Among his 27 books are “On the Art of Writing Copy” (third edition), “Marketing Mayhem” and “Effective E-mail Marketing.”