KFC Corp.: Chicken Capital Usa campaign

Rayna Bailey

This paper describes how following KFC’s unsuccessful attempt to distance themselves from the unhealthy connotations of ‘fried’, they returned to their southern-fried roots and launched a marketing campaign called Chicken Capital USA, featuring the ‘Fried with Pride’ tagline.

KFC Corp.: Chicken Capital Usa campaign

Rayna Bailey

OVERVIEW

Despite 50 years of selling "finger lickin' good" fried chicken, Kentucky Fried Chicken in the early 1990s Corp. decided to change with the times. Besides changing its menu offerings to include healthier choices, such as roasted chicken and salads, the company further distanced the brand from its greasy past by dropping its full name and adopting the moniker "KFC." An editorial in Advertising Agestated, "It made sense then to diversify the menu … But the chain's jettisoning of a venerable name—and distancing from the word fried—was ill-conceived and damaging....

WARC subscribers can sign in to keep reading

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands