Fried Chicken, Snuff & Beer

KFC ads on a health kick- A new campaign breaks today from Foote, Cone & Belding, who won the account last month. In one ad, a woman brings home dinner to her husband, saying, "Y'know how we've been talking about eating better? Well, it starts today!'' And then she slams down a bucket of KFC fried chicken. In another ad, one 30-something man brings the news to a friend who happens by. "Jack?'' asks the passer-by, "Is that you? Man, you look fantastic! What the heck you been doing?'' He replies, "Eatin' chicken.'' Then the voice-over explains: "The secret's out. One Original Recipe chicken breast has just 11 grams of carbs and packs 40 grams of protein. So if you're going low-carb, high-protein, go KFC.'' Sharp-eyed viewers will catch a glimpse of an on-screen disclaimer, however, that warns: "Not a low-fat, low-sodium, low-cholesterol food.'' The husband-and-wife spot even encourages KFC customers to "go skinless for just 3 grams of fat per piece.'' All the commercials end with the new theme, "You gotta KFC what's cookin'!'' Yes that's the tag. I know ad copy doesn't have to be grammatically correct, but come on. It doesn't even make sense. I'm shaking my head on this one.

Reintroducing snuff to the masses - From the article: "...tobacco giants have been donning their thinking caps to devise ingenious ways of reaching their market.
Although it hardly enjoys the most glamorous of images, the answer they have come up with is snuff. Tobacco giant the US Smokeless Tobacco Company (USSTC) is busy trying to attract young professionals to its newly packaged product. Today, however, snuff is creeping back in, as a way to get a nicotine fix where smoking is either frowned upon or outright banned. Snuff sales in the US have risen steadily over the past ten years in spite of the dropping smoking rates, and, in the last two years, sales increased ten per cent, from £64.8 million in 2000 to £71.7m in 2002, according to the US Department of Agriculture."
"U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co., the principal subsidiary of UST Inc., said it plans to run a new marketing test for its Revel Tobacco Packs, has added a Wintergreen flavor to its fresh mint line and has solicited the FTC for comments on its proposed campaign. The print ad, via Doe-Anderson, Louisville, Ky., shows a happy, embracing couple with the headlines, "I was a smoker but my wife hated the smoke. So why are we smiling?" and "No secondhand smoke: Another reason to switch to Revel." The Greenwich, Conn.-based company said it completed initial limited test marketing for Revel in Youngstown, Ohio and Topeka, Kansas in 2002 and plans a second test market introduction later this year at an unnamed location."

Creative job seekers are using more gimmicks in an attempt to get noticed in a bloated job hunting market.

Miller admits Dick and Babes didn't help - Excerpts from the article: "Despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars over the last decade on advertising featuring a host of ex-jocks, a quirky guy named Dick and a bevy of brawling babes, the Miller Brewing Co. has accepted that its name means little to the average beer drinker."
"It's a tough admission for the marketing brass at Miller's Milwaukee headquarters and for SAB Miller, the brewer's South African owner, but the company has realized that the humor and babes model on which it has relied has failed to differentiate it from Anheuser-Busch. The Miller name has become so generic that even when consumers have liked an ad, they've mistaken it for a Budweiser commercial, Miller executives confessed."
"We found ourselves more focused on form than substance," said Bob Mikulay, executive vice president for marketing at Miller, which spent $245 million in measured media on its brands last year, as compared to Anheuser-Busch's $411 million. "We were driven by creative as opposed to strategy." Mr. Mikulay, who once worked for Miller's prior owner, Philip Morris, said that when the cigarette company promoted Marlboro, it didn't do so without talking about its intrinsic brand values.The brewer is now trying to change its strategy, beginning with a package of three trademark spots designed to make consumers realize they have a choice, and that choosing Miller is a "good call." "
"We had forgotten why people drink our beer," said Mr. Mikulay, from his Milwaukee office. "We needed to remind ourselves that consumers need a compelling reason to try and use your product -- otherwise consumers go with the default choice, the market leader. It sounds very basic, but we had forgotten that."

The World Federation of Advertisers has just announced their hall of fame. Check it out here. (via Dab.)

Spank fashion ad withdrawn after complains. I'm not sure how these ads would make someone want to buy their product. Seems more like a PR stunt to me.