• The brilliance of harnessing humor.

• An open letter to KFC from a neurohumorist.

• FCK proves that Funny Means Money!

 

 

The Backstory

 

KFC UK was caught in unpleasant predicament. They had plenty of chicken. They had plenty of restaurants. And they had plenty of customers. But they just couldn’t bring all of them together due to a transportation faux pas. The result? Fowl play… Well, not exactly. The franchise had to actually close more 600 stores—for four or five days!

 

From a financial point-of-view this was obviously a crisis. But the real crisis was among KFC’s fanatical customers. And by “fanatical” I mean beyond Apple-customer fanatical. (I don’t think anyone has ever called 911 because they couldn’t get an iPhone  when they wanted one!) Some chickenless customers were paying up to £100 to chicken scalpers. Chicken-scalpers!

 

But here’s where the story really gets interesting! KFC UK apologized with a full-page newspaper ad that will go down in advertising history: for its humor, creativity and impact. (Move over, “I’d like to teach the world to sing”!) And in 30 years of studying the field of applied humor, KFC’s “FCK” ad is the single best example to date of what I call High Performance Humor. 

 

 

The Open Letter to FCK, er, KFC

 

First, congrats! Your FCK ad was a stroke of genius. And I’d like to interview you guys for my upcoming book, “Funny Means Money” (ForbesBooks, September 2018).

 

Now if I were in your shoes, I would jump on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to leverage your brilliant humorous tactic and turn it into a strategy to do a world of good.

 

The image of the buckets with the FCK is generating an overwhelmingly positive response. Capitalize on this! These crazy FCK buckets could be valuable! 

 

If you were one of my corporate clients I would view your brilliant ad as the first step in a campaign to generate millions of dollars—or pounds, or whatever!—for a charity.

 

Idea #1

Create a limited edition of these finger-licking-good buckets, and auction them off, and give the proceeds to your favorite charity. 

 

Idea #2

And maybe get some celebrities to sign the FCK buckets. You’ll generate much more money!

 

Idea #3

Here’s a twist: Create a project on a crowd sourcing platform, and the limited edition FCK buckets would be the high-ticket item for the biggest patrons. And some of the lower level enticements could be (1) gift certificates for KFC meals, or (2) private parties hosted at KFC restaurants, or (3) custom KFC T-shirts, or (4) shares of KFC stock!

 

Idea #4

Or how about selling bright red T-shirts with your ad printed on them! (Your FCK could become more ubiquitous than “Got Milk?”)

 

 

Handling a Crisis with High Performance Humor

 

Not that there’s much competition, but KFC is now officially The Major Corporation with the Best Sense of Humor in the World.

 

A little bit of humor can go a long way in the business world. With three little letters KFC averted a crisis, created a positive publicity tsunami around the globe, generated goodwill, and prevented a loss of at least £10 million to the corporation.

 

Most corporate responses to a crisis aim to simply ‘put out the fire.’ But through the masterful use of humor, KFC bought themselves multi-millions of dollars in good publicity, and goodwill worth millions more.

 

While measuring the ROI of humor is still an inexact science, it is easy to see the practical, bottom-line benefits of using humor. Through FCK, KFC has proven—in a big way—that funny means money.

 

And a quick cultural note: This ad probably would not work here in America. Our culture is currently too quick to take offense, and as a whole we are suffering from a humor deficit. Maybe it’s because the Brits grew up on Monty Python, and the Yanks grew up on I Love Lucy. (This would make a great research project for some graduate student. Call me to discuss!)

 

And kudos to KFC’s ad agency, Mother London. They understand the power of High Performance Humor to influence their customers in positive ways. 

 

I firmly believe that humor has the power to save the world (see my TEDx talk “How Humor Saved the World”—at bit.ly/TEDxKB). And you folks at KFC now have a unique opportunity to harness your humorous idea, and use it to benefit not just your company, and not just your customers, but thousands of people in in the UK or around the world.

 

I have lots more ideas of how you could harness your corporate sense of humor! Gimme a shout!    

 

@KarynBuxman