KFC put out another great, self-aware ad last month.
It took an idea we’ve all nearly had and executed it simply and perfectly. Fresh but familiar, like the first time you hear ‘Penny Lane’ by The Beatles.
The message is that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Which is appropriate, because KFC themselves are not the first fried chicken chain to take this tack with their promotions.
Anyone local to South London will be aware of the stranglehold the mighty Morley’s have over the fried chicken market on this side of the city.
They (or a particularly ardent fan of theirs) have been calling out the copyists of their branding for years on their good-natured Morley’s Or Less Twitter account.
High-street fried chicken seems to be a market where everyone wants to look exactly the same, but slightly different.
Mr Chicken RIP
One man who enjoyed great success out of this situation before he passed away a few years ago was Morris Cassanova, or Mr Chicken as he was known.
Morris is believed to have single-handedly designed up to 90% of the chicken shop signs in London. That’s a lot of ground to cover with such a narrow palette of concepts to recycle (red, white and blue colour scheme; a chicken’s head; maybe an American city).
Which I suppose makes it inevitable that sometimes there’ll be duplication of designs, accidental or otherwise.
Take my local chicken shop. They used to be called ‘Perfect Fried Chicken’, until a couple of years ago when they rebranded. To ‘Ferfect Fried Chicken’. That’s right, ferfect.
I like to imagine their Head of Legal receiving an urgent cease-and-desist from the ferocious lawyers over at Perfect Fried Chicken and having to come up with a solution sharpish.
So, they just bolted an ‘F’ over the ‘P’ and kept right on frying. And it seems to have worked; they’re doing as brisk business as ever in there.
As well as keeping the lawyers at bay, that second ‘F’ in perfect also offers up a tempting new creative opportunity…
I doubt they’ve got KFC’s advertising budget so if they wanted a new strapline, they can have ‘Too F-in’ perfect’ for free.
If you need any support with your fried chicken puns or any other aspects of your communications, I’d be happy to help.
Richard Ellis Communications 