Little trivia: did you know Howard Stern once ran for governor of New York on a campaign that included filling the state's potholes with the rich ashes of death row inmates? Did you kow Colonel Sanders himself is personally filling Kentucky potholes with what we hope is "asphault" and marking them with a "Re-freshed by KFC" stencil?
You could make the joke that filling a pothole with asphault while running TV spots where they top off a chicken bucket with corn, mashed potatoes, cheese and gravy makes the buttocks clench the wallet pretty tight, but they're hoping people make the more obscure connection between "refreshing the street" and its new "fresh" campaign which focuses on food quality. It's actually called "consumer-service marketing" or "cause marketing", and in a nut shell it's a very old idea.
Early American advertising is rammed with puppets and cartoons shilling everything from Michelins to Marlboros. Here's the thing: Fred Flintstone wasn't trying to get Johnny Lunchpail to smoke Camels. He was working to create a warm feeling about the brand in Johnny's brain so one day he would feel comfortable enough about Camels to throw a pack in his adult-sized lunchpail.
Consumer-service or cause marketing works on the same principal. It creates a quiet feeling of goodwill between companies and consumers. While you're suspending your disbelief about chicken-flavored road holes, keep in mind I'm applauding KFC for their ballsy initiative. I'll explain shortly.
For my money, a better example of a company helping people on a grassroots level that builds directly to it's brand in a more strategic way is Charmin toilet tissue. For the last three years, they've provided custom port-o-lets in Times Square, and even have an iPhone/BlackBerry application that finds the nearest toilet in an emergency. They've embraced experiential event marketing and social media applications.
And now, the thorn in my paw revealed: for years I worked on an unnamed disinfectant manufacturer (not necessarily featured in my portfolio) that repeatedly shot down every attempt at any guerilla style awareness marketing and brand building in high traffic public washrooms.
And now, the thorn in my paw revealed: for years I worked on an unnamed disinfectant manufacturer (not necessarily featured in my portfolio) that repeatedly shot down every attempt at any guerilla style awareness marketing and brand building in high traffic public washrooms.
Toilets and germs seems more literal than the association between fresh asphault and fresh chicken, but they didn't want to risk turning off consumers "by associating their brand with germs". So you can see, whenever a company is brave enough to engage in long term brand building rather than short term product lifts, my hands slap together involuntarily.
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