Advertisment
The advertisement, set in a KFC Restaurant, opens with a counter server placing a large bucket of chicken on a countertop. The server says, “Here’s your order”, to the customers, a bride and her bridesmaid. The server speaks again and says “congratulations” to the bride, and she responds with “thanks hon.” The bride and her bridesmaid then head to their table, and they are featured holding a piece of chicken each from the bucket. The bridesmaid tells the bride that “we should probably head to the church soon,” the bride points to her engagement ring and says “If I can wait 12 years for this, he can wait for 15 minutes. The on-screen text, reads, “When it’s got to be KFC. It’s got to be KFC”. The on-screen text is accompanied by a male voiceover who delivers the same message.
The advertisement ends with the bride and her bridesmaid taking a piece of chicken each from the bucket to eat.
Complaint
The complainant said as far as they were aware, the bucket of chicken was a family share portion and they considered it to be unhealthy for two people to eat such a sharing bucket of fried chicken in 15 minutes.
Response
The advertisers said that the narrative of the advertisement was about satisfying a craving for KFC, not encouraging excessive consumption. The bride’s line “He can wait 15 minutes” was a generalised, colloquial expression for an indeterminate amount of time. It was not intended to imply that the wedding itself would take place in exactly 15 minutes or that the bride and her friend had to eat all the chicken before then. They said the bucket featured in the advertisement contained a 6-piece chicken portion, so a mix of 6 bone-in chicken pieces, drumstick/thighs etc. The said that neither the bride, nor her friend were shown finishing the bucket, nor was it a given that they had to do so before leaving the restaurant.
In conclusion the advertisers said that the advertisement had presented a heightened comic narrative that drew a humorous contrast between the relative importance the bride placed on her craving for KFC and her upcoming wedding.
Further Information:
The ASAI Executive viewed the bucket of chicken featured in the advertisement. It appeared to be the case that 6 pieces of relatively similar sized chicken pieces were in view around the top of the bucket. The ASAI Executive estimated that the depth of the bucket would contain more than one layer of chicken, therefore, the impression created by the advertisement was that the portion size was larger than 6 pieces.
Conclusion
Complaint Upheld.
The Complaints Committee considered the detail of the complaint and the advertisers’ response.
The Committee noted that Section 8.4 of the ASAI Code outlines that “Marketing communications for food should not encourage or condone excess consumption. They should not encourage an unhealthy lifestyle or unhealthy/unbalanced eating or drinking habits”. The Committee considered that the impression created by the portion size of the bucket depicted in the advertisement was that it contained more than 6 pieces of chicken, the sharing size for two people. They considered, therefore, the advertisement was in breach of Section 8.4 of the Code.
Action Required:
The advertisement should not reappear in its current form.
