How KFC turned crisis to triumph

A chick­en restau­rant with­out any chick­en was how KFC point­ed­ly described its sup­ply issues in an adver­tise­ment in the UK nation­al press. The com­pa­ny was forced to close hun­dreds of its UK restau­rants in Feb­ru­ary after it switched deliv­ery com­pa­nies, lead­ing to a poul­try short­age.

At its peak, the short­age report­ed­ly forced the com­pa­ny to close 646 of its 900 UK out­lets. But while the inci­dent could have exposed the com­pa­ny to brand dam­age, lost rev­enues and dis­grun­tled cus­tomers, its well-exe­cut­ed pub­lic rela­tions strat­e­gy repaired the dam­age with speed.

With­in hours of the ini­tial prob­lems com­ing to light, cus­tomers knew exact­ly what had gone wrong, how it was being resolved and, impor­tant­ly, when it would be fixed.

The company’s response and that of Freuds, its appoint­ed pub­lic rela­tions agency, was labelled a “tri­umph” by PR Week, while rep­u­ta­tion experts said the response was a mas­ter­class in cri­sis com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

Not only did they recog­nise mis­takes had clear­ly been made, but they also used that to their advan­tage by inject­ing some humour

“The adver­tis­ing and sup­port­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions were genius,” says Emma Evans, founder of Wylie Com­mu­ni­ca­tions. “Not only did they recog­nise mis­takes had clear­ly been made, but they also used that to their advan­tage by inject­ing some humour and keep­ing the lan­guage sim­ple.”

It would have been easy for KFC’s direc­tors to hes­i­tate. In the ear­ly hours of the sup­ply chain break­down, lit­tle was known about when nor­mal ser­vice would be restored, but the group decid­ed it was bet­ter to recog­nise the issues being expe­ri­enced by cus­tomers and build the nar­ra­tive as facts became avail­able.

“Our instinct was that we had to face the issue head on: a chick­en restau­rant with­out chick­en. Not ide­al,” says a spokes­woman for KFC. “We were respond­ing live as we received new infor­ma­tion. We act­ed fast in assess­ing the issue and work­ing out the best approach.”

KFC’s speed of response was core to man­ag­ing the unfold­ing cri­sis suc­cess­ful­ly. “Any com­pa­ny caught up in a dis­as­ter or pend­ing dis­as­ter needs to take ear­ly con­trol of the sit­u­a­tion, but this is not the same as admis­sion of guilt.” says Hen­ri­et­ta Hirst, man­ag­ing direc­tor of City PR firm City Savvy.

Ms Hirst says the KFC inci­dent shows the impor­tance of rapid­ly recog­nis­ing that a cri­sis sit­u­a­tion is unfold­ing. How­ev­er, she warns that com­pa­nies should not be too eager to apol­o­gise or acknowl­edge blame until all the facts are known.

“Rapid recog­ni­tion of a cri­sis sit­u­a­tion, whether impend­ing or unfold­ing, is impor­tant,” she says. “This recog­ni­tion and appro­pri­ate response helps a com­pa­ny cap­ture author­i­ty and con­vey a sense of cor­po­rate respon­si­bil­i­ty and reas­sur­ance to those affect­ed.”

In the after­math of the dis­tri­b­u­tion errors, KFC made jokes on social media plat­forms and reor­gan­ised the let­ters of its brand-name to FCK for a nation­al adver­tis­ing cam­paign.

While the company’s response was applaud­ed for its sim­plic­i­ty by com­men­ta­tors, the deci­sion to employ humour would have been the result of eval­u­at­ing plen­ty of oth­er ideas, accord­ing to Richard Berry, a senior lec­tur­er in adver­tis­ing, mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions at Solent Uni­ver­si­ty, Southamp­ton.

“When you look at the response at face val­ue, it looks incred­i­bly sim­ple. But some­one has had to reject 99 oth­er solu­tions to select that approach,” he explains. “They could have gone for some­thing more con­ser­v­a­tive or cho­sen a very ratio­nal approach, with an open let­ter to their cus­tomers.”

How­ev­er, Dr Berry says the deci­sion to use humour was smart, giv­en the amount of crit­i­cism the com­pa­ny was ini­tial­ly receiv­ing on social media. There is no doubt that the sto­ry could eas­i­ly have been far worse for KFC.

As increas­ing num­bers of restau­rants were affect­ed by the sup­ply short­ages, hun­gry cus­tomers took to social media to lam­bast the fast food chain. But the company’s response to social media was just as swift as its inter­ac­tion with tra­di­tion­al media out­lets, respond­ing to cus­tomers direct­ly and with humour, han­dling the sit­u­a­tion in pub­lic.

“With some quick, clear think­ing, the nar­ra­tive changed from relent­less neg­a­tiv­i­ty to a bal­anced one that clev­er­ly gained empa­thy,” explains Wylie Com­mu­ni­ca­tions’ Ms Evans.

Many of the respons­es that the com­pa­ny were receiv­ing through Twit­ter, Face­book and Insta­gram were emo­tion­al­ly dri­ven, with the police even report­ing calls from dis­tressed cus­tomers unable to get their fast-food fix.

The fact that the com­pa­ny iden­ti­fied emo­tion was dri­ving a large part of the nar­ra­tive was key in jus­ti­fy­ing a humor­ous response, accord­ing to Dr Berry.

“A large num­ber of cus­tomers shared memes and oth­er con­tent, which was the neg­a­tive side of the sto­ry. But there was a stronger chance that a humor­ous response would have been shared wide­ly. It was an unbe­liev­able one-off.”

While KFC’s adept use of social media to inject some humour into the nar­ra­tive and defuse the sit­u­a­tion is now being held up as a case study by cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions aca­d­e­mics, there is still a wider reluc­tance by some com­pa­nies to embrace social media to con­nect with their cus­tomers dur­ing a cri­sis.

Lou Dolan, a found­ing part­ner at PR agency Camar­co, says when com­pa­nies are draw­ing up their cri­sis com­mu­ni­ca­tions strate­gies, social media remains an ele­ment that is over­looked, despite being a cru­cial part to mod­ern-day cri­sis man­age­ment strat­e­gy. “You may not want to engage with it, but you cer­tain­ly need to know what is being said,” she con­cludes.