KFC has issued a press release explaining their newest marketing effort: They’re going to make your office smell like chicken.
No, really. KFC has plans to install some sort of chicken-smell-producing food item that they are promoting on to several mail carts in offices in Washington D.C., Chicago and Dallas—the idea is that once you smell the distinctive aroma of fried chicken emanating from your mail cart—you won’t be able to stop yourself from purchasing said chicken-smelling item from your local KFC.
“There is truly no better brand ambassador worldwide than the signature aroma of freshly prepared Kentucky Fried Chicken,” said James O’Reilly, chief marketing officer for KFC. “And we couldn’t think of a better way to showcase the value of our new $2.99 Deal than to inject the mouth-watering scent of Kentucky Fried Chicken into the corridors of corporate America.”
Uh, ew. This is even dumber than the time they asked the Pope to bless their fish sandwiches.
SPECIAL DELIVERY: SCENT OF FRESHLY PREPARED KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN TO TEMPT TASTE BUDS OF AMERICAN OFFICEWORKERS [KFC]
(Photo:Morton Fox)
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that’s arguably one of the grossest things i’ve ever seen…
Wow, the smell of KFC makes me sick. I’m thankful this isn’t happening here just yet, but if it does I’ll raise hell.
Note: I love fried chicken, just not KFC.
Mail cart? I haven’t gotten a useful piece of mail at work in five years. And I would be seriously pissed off if I were a vegetarian and the concentrated smell of fried chicken were expressed daily throughout my office.
If a coworker eats it for lunch, that’s one thing, but to have it artificially introduced…Meg is right. This IS dumber than the time they asked the Pope to bless their fish sandwiches. Exponentially so.
This will backfire in offices that are closer to Popeye’s, Browns, or other chicken joints.
There should be some kind of OSHA regulation against that kind of stunt, no????
What kind of boss would approve it?
The poor mail person who will have it in their face all the time instead of just having it waft past the cube.
Ewwwwwwwwww
Didn’t you hear? They’re merging with ‘glade’ next, so your house will smell like KFC, too.
Seriously, so disgusting….
Maybe I’ve been reading too much about a certain U.S. Senator from Idaho, but that just sounds dirty…
I don’t want KFC injecting anything into my “corridors”, no matter how “mouth-watering” they think it might be.
This post makes me want a famous bowl SO BAD!
Lunch was a long time ago.
That’s fowl.
A logical extension would be to make all of the mail on the cart transparent and greasy.
What a bad idea. People will reek of chicken at the office and make you smell like a person who enjoys nothing but fast food
OMG, Precious Roy was selling this, what, ten years ago??
Ewwww!
This is an excellent idea…for a local restaurant. For fast food it’s disgusting. I walk by Sam Woo almost every day, and if I smelled that between 10 and 11 I know I’d be counting the seconds to lunch. If I smelled KFC I’d have to take a sick day.
Yum! Extra Crispy KFC is the best!
FUCK YOU, I’M EATING!
KFC is NASTY. Ever wonder why no black people eat at KFC? Because it’s NASTY. They know what good fried chicken is… and it isn’t at KFC. (Sorry if I’ve offended anyone with the stereotype though).
KFC is nasty, and I’m sure the smell of it is just as nasty. I’d quit if my workplace had to smell like it.
@Crazytree
That’s one of my favorite lines from that movie.
i have to drive by a KFC every day on the way home from work. and i smell that nasty, greasy odor every freaking day.
does NOT make a person want to suddenly stop and eat.
Ugh. Can’t see that going around my office, since we don’t have a mail cart and the closest KFC is a hole-in-the-wall place five blocks away. *Maybe* if they were with-in a block, but I’d try Popeye’s also. I wish they were able to keep using the ol’ sailor.
This has nothing to do with actually injecting aroma into offices… this article and the buzz (negative and otherwise) it’s generating is the real ad.
As a vegetarian, I hope I don’t barf if they pass my office. I work in a hospital, so I doubt if they would allow it, but come on, what about those of us who don’t dig the flesh?
@kelmeister: Man, those bowls look so bowelicious.
@AmericaTheBrave: exactly what I was gonna say, I’m a popeyes person, so if I’m in the mood for fried chicken, I’m going popeyes.
And people would seriously be grossed out by this. There’s gonna be protests.
This could kill my notorious love for chicken in nearly any form. (Notorious by way of it’s practically a family joke how much I love it versus how much my mother hates it.)
If you read the actual press release, it sounds as if they are actually having people walk push special mail carts carrying ACTUAL FOOD around offices around lunchtime. And this is supposed to make people want to leave the office and go to KFC.
Wow I can’t believe I actually used the word “actual” and it’s variations THREE TIMES in one sentence. Like, woah.
Real fried chicken makes me sick to my stomach when I smell it, I can’t imagine what synthetic fried chicken chemicals are like.
There’s a time and place to smell food in the air and the smell of toner and paper mixed with chicken isn’t one of them.
last time I ate KFC I spent the rest of the day on the toilet. that was about 8 years ago and I’ve never been back. it’s a magic diarrhea bomb.
I had KFC for the first time since seeing the green/soylent green/greasy/brain but not really brain chicken on Consumerist a month or so ago. And it reminded me of why the fuck I hate KFC so much. It had a white rubbery what ever the fuck it was in it and of course KFC chicken is wet. Why oh why is their chicken wet. BLAHHHHHH!
What’s wrong with you haters? Fried chicken is awesome, and even KFC (which I won’t eat) smells deliciously fatty & salty & peppery.
@ahwannabe: Well, he does make lots of suckers out of girls and boys, so I guess KFC is just the latest.
Also: “Ooh, I smell fried chicken. Time to go to Church’s!”
“What kind of boss would approve it?”
the kind getting a large kickback from KFC
Awright! Now my whole office can smell like fried chicken ass! Coming up next month, piped in smells of dogshit, vomit, and urine, brought to you by the ASPCA & New Orleans’ Bourbon St.
I love fried chicken, but can’t eat KFC. The last time I was there, one of their employees dropped chicken pieces on the floor and then put them back on the rack. My entire family was sick after that meal.
They could set an open bucket of KFC on the mail cart and make the office smell like grease.
I get it, this is joke!….no seriously this is joke, right?
Sounds Awesome. I hope they put one in the PETA office. KFC rocks.
At least they are up front about it.
That is disgusting. Like most offices don’t already smell like some stale mix of b.o., all the perfume junkies, various foods, microwave popcorn, diet coke and toner.
Purposely injecting a fake smell with some chemical compound into a workplace could get them in trouble with the A.D.A.
People with asthma or chemical sensitivities could be made ill by the faux nasty chicken aroma.
Unless they can come up with something that smells like chicken, without actually smelling like chicken… sorta like artificial grape flavor… people are going to be hunting down all the sweaty, fat people in the office.
@geeniusatwrok:
Hey could that be KFC’s famous BOWELS?
Wait – do some of your offices not have a deep-fryer between the coffee maker and the toaster in the break room?
How do you get anything done?
God damn I hate fried chicken.
An interesting aside (which no one will probably read or respond to) is that while so many people who are not vegitarians think it is ridiculous how strong a reaction they have to the smell of cooked mean, I understand and I am not a vegitarian.
I don’t eat pork. Just, never have. Occasionally I’ll eat a non-beef hot dog at a sporting event if thats all they have, but never pork steaks, pork chops, etc. And the smell of bacon or ham is enough to make me feel sick. But there is nothing wrong with pork, I just can’t stand it because there is no association taht I have with that being food… and lets be honest, pork smells completely different than beef when its being cooked.
That having been said… I also think it smells like burning human flesh. Don’t ask.
@Hexum2600: I don’t think the vegetarian reaction is unreasonable at all– I feel the same way about the kettle popcorn and movie popcorn stenches I smell anywhere either thing is found in any quantity. It makes me want to vomit!
I have to wonder what the idjits at KFC are thinking with this utterly dipshiznitted idea– strong smells in an office are a horrible, horrible thing. It’s bad enough to deal with microwave popcorn smells, and the stench of coworkers who drown themselves in nasty cat-pee smelling colognes, but deliberately adding other strong smell to the mix doesn’t exactly enhance productivity.
0@Hexum2600:
Well Cannibals refer to Human flesh as “long pig” and a japanese tasting robot said we tasted like prosciutto or speck, so its not that far from the truth
@ChrisC1234: Nasty in the eyes of the beholder. Once in a great while, I need a chicken “fix”. Still, having been in a mail room long ago, that would get old quick.