Let me cut through the confusing acronyms (KFC, ASA, CSR, KT, UK – and of course my favourite – PETA) and boil it down for you: PETA’s campaign is hitting the company so hard they’re now seeking specialist PR support. The story here is far from a story full of random placement of capital letters. It seems KFC cannot contend with PETA’s high-profile campaign on its own anymore and is COFFCOFFRUNNING-TO-MUMMYCOFFCOFF seeking help from a PR firm to try and raise its ailing reputation.

Now, call me a stirrer, but after reading the article I wanted to pull a couple of KFC quotes from it, and then rip them apart (because it’s Monday and I just like to do things like that – you’ll get used to it)

Quote 1: ‘It’s not about health and wellbeing. KFC just wants to do good things.’
Now hang on a second, can anyone tell me just what there is that’s good about KFC? Especially considering that many of the poor chickens endure live scalding - and painful de-beaking – before they’re killed? I mean, I know it’s Monday but have I woken up on the wrong side of bed today or what?
Matt’s interpretation: “We don’t really care about the masses, we just want to line our pockets” or perhaps “QUICK!! What can we say, I know, let’s err away from the obesity issue”

Which would lead me onto their second quote:

Quote 2: ‘KFC is not at the forefront of obesity-related issues,’
Ahem.. anyone doing a Google image search for “KFC Fat” may like to disagree with that one matey! (the second image in particular!)
Matt’s interpretation: “OMG! We’re at the forefront of obesity-related issues, lets hire some PR firm sharpish!”

Anyway, I digress – The original point was that this story hit the front page of PR Week, an excellent means to highlight this issue among those who may not have thought twice about cruelty to chickens. That the ASA ruled in PETA’s favour is nothing I didn’t expect to happen anyway, but KFC hiring a PR firm is so fruitless, everyone knows what KFC stands for. (feel free to make suggestions of your own)

Your sarky neighbourhood Matt

Over the past few months a lively debate has been taking place between PETA and the ASA (those eager beavers at the Advertising Standards Authority) over whether a PETA leaflet that describes the abuse inflicted upon chickens for KFC is offensive and violates the ASA’s Code. The good news is; we won – the ASA determined PETA had done nothing wrong!

So, some Britons think a picture of the Colonel slashing up chickens is offensive? Well, you know what? KFC’s suppliers keep chickens kept locked up in tiny cages, throw them in scalding hot water and then slit their throats - that’s offensive. The facts that PETA give are always the truth; we simply serve to get them out to the general public. We do have freedom of speech in this country, right? Anyway, we won, we won!

Is feeding kids meat child abuse? The answer is yes, but to the people that complained to ASA about our campaign ad, it’s a very tetchy subject. The Advertising Standard Authority (ASA) has released their ‘top 10’ most offensive ads and PETA has cropped up as number 9 for the genius poster below.

The complaint was not upheld (duh) and we walked off scot-free, which is the only reasonable verdict really, due to the factual nature of the poster – as the ASA recognised that saying feeding kids meat is tantamount to child abuse is a reasonable view. The ASA quite rightly came to the conclusion that the ad did not trivialise child abuse, in the context of what we were saying it did not mislead consumers and that parents have enough intelligence to work out how to “replace the nutrients meat provides”. Meat is not nutritious good for you; in fact I think you’ll find it sucks on a whole load of levels (ten actually!). A vegetarian or vegan diet is the only one that should be fed to children if parents care about their offspring’s health.