Advertising Age.com: KFC spent months seeking Oprah Winfrey's approval of the Kentucky Grilled Chicken 2-piece meal coupon promotion. When approval came, the chain had one week to execute its promotion as the chain prepared for double the amount of Winfrey's projections based on other offers from her show.
About 10.5 million coupons were downloaded, many of those were photocopied, despite instructions that they would not be accepted. KFC gave away 4 million meals in two days before realizing it wasn't keeping up with demand.
Despite a rise in negative online postings about the brand after the promotion was rescinded, KFC maintains that the company has never had a more positive customer response, with about two in four grilled-chicken customers being new or rare visitors to the chain.
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