When KFC enlisted Oprah to help roll out its new "Grilled" "Chicken" food product, sparking furious chicken riots across America, it looked like the "Grilled" "Chicken" food product would go down as a terrible fiasco. Think again! Grease+teevee lady=win.

Some of us thought that the fact that KFC was overrun by free "Chicken"-seeking Oprah fans, and totally blew them off with false promises of some free "chicken" at some future date, would sink the "Brand's" reputation, or something. We badly overestimated the extent to which Americans care about sticking to their guns for a cause, and underestimated Americans' affinity for "Grilled" "Chicken" food products:

"This has to be the best product launch in our history," Yum CEO David Novak said during the company's second-quarter earnings call this morning...

[KFC's marketing chief] credited grilled chicken's success to KFC's advertising and accompanying celebrity endorsements; product-placement deals in properties such as "Gary Unmarried"; and even the Oprah giveaway, which yielded a response too big for the marketer to handle.

Not only did Oprah's false promise not drive Americans away from her and her cottage fry-slinging backers; it actually sparked so much interest that people unable to get their free "Grilled" "Chicken" food product returned to the stores at a later date and paid their own money to sample said food product.

We were foolish to think that the combination of Oprah's cultlike powers and pressed patties of amalgamated processed chicken parts, salt, artificial flavors, and certain industrial fillers could be resisted. This, after all, is America.
[Ad Age]