This just in from the Joe Duck “you can call me a chicken but don’t call me late for dinner” department:
The numbers are in for the coupon fiasco promotion and it appears my estimate of downloaded number (10 million) was very good. However it looks like eventually the total redemption will be greater than I predicted.
At an eventual redemption rate of 8 million coupons, food costs of 20% and non-fixed costs of another 20% (all guesstimates by me), KFC will have spent 40% x 8 million meals x $4 meal = $12.8 million
Oprah says 10.5 million coupons were downloaded and 4 million used so far:
“We would like to apologize to our customers who have been inconvenienced by the overwhelming response to our free Kentucky Grilled Chicken offer,” said Roger Eaton, president of KFC U.S. “The lines of customers wanting to redeem their coupons have been out the door and around the block, so we’re unable to redeem customer coupons at this time.”
Eaton appeared on Winfrey’s show Friday via Skype to sort out what she referred to as the “chicken caper.”
Winfrey acknowledged some of the issues surrounding the campaign, and called the download of 10.5 million coupons and giveaway of $42 million worth of free food from KFC “quite a hookup.”
Eaton said 4 million meals had been redeemed by using the coupons, with 6.5 million meals from rainchecks still needing to be distributed.
Winfrey said the reaction to the chicken coupon surpassed even her giveaway of cars to audience members a few years ago.
“I was really deeply moved, first of all, by all the people who sent thank you’s for the chicken,” Winfrey said. “You know, I actually got more thank you’s for the chickens than we did for the cars, which is so amazing.”
Note to Oprah (who I love, but who I think may need some math tutoring) Of course you got more thank yous for the chicken. You gave away 10 million chicken dinners and a few hundred cars. I didn’t get either : (
Joe Duck 