The Oprah Riots
How is it that IHOP and Denny's can give away free food during the year and they never have any problems at all, but Oprah gives out a free coupon for KFC and the world goes nuts. Oprah announced on her website that the entire world is getting free chicken. There is a coupon that had to be printed out by yesterday and then you have until the 19th to use it.
Well, apparently KFC outlets didn't get the memo or they are so used to no one actually coming to their stores that when 200-300 people show up, they lose their minds.
According to Gawker, KFC outlets in New York have refused to honor the coupons or are only doing so for a few minutes. This is not going over well with people and they are angry. Angry enough where customers have got into fights and others who are staging protests and sit-ins. There have been racial slurs back and forth. And, PETA hasn't even got involved in all of this yet. I can't wait to see what they try to do to Oprah. Try being the operative word.
27 comments:
i have a coupon, and i will be at KFC today.
there has to have been a lack of communication on someone's end. there should also be limited hours for the coupons also.
It actually sounds really good...can you still print a coupon?
There should have been a Guns -n- Roses CD somewhere in that deal....
It's crazy and the media insists on making it racial which really irritates me. It is free food during a tough economic climate, people are going to get a little out of hand
their server was very busy yesterday, but we managed to get through. :)
can't hurt to try...
i believe that kfc did not prepare their employees ahead of time. redeeming the coupon during limited hours would help them out tremendously.
but i'm going. yum yum.
lol @ brendalove!
Get 'em, PETA - KFC is dead for a reason.
I saw a lot of people in the KFC on the upper east side when I walked past last night. Everyone was eating and no protesters so that store must've been honoring them.
And I hadn't heard about the coupon thing...couldn't figure out why it was so crowded. Another of life's mysteries solved.
I tried to download that and it told me I already had. (which I hadn't)
That I was out of luck. I just figured it was a scam.
There are a couple of problems, and I really feel sorry for the stores that are virtually giving away food, having to wait for redemption back from the main office, and not being consulted or warned about this.
But the bigger problems are with the coupons: if you have certain types of Adobe programs loaded on to read PDF files automatically, the coupon printer defaults to the Adobe program, and gives you a generic coupon (with the bar code being something like 1234567891234). No matter what you do, you can't make the coupon printer program overrule the Adobe program, so you end up printing out this generic one (unwittingly, because you're doing exactly what the screens are telling you), and you can print out as many as you want.
What's SUPPOSED to happen is that you download a coupon printer, it reads your ISP and only lets you print out 2 coupons, each with unique and scannable bar codes, and that's that.
So a lot of people, probably most people, are showing up with these generic coupons, and they don't scan, and the stores think they're bring scammed ..... you get the idea.
Because, like e-tickets, once scanned, the bar code is supposed to come up as invalid, that's why you can't just make a thousand photo copies and have them all take.
But, KFC's scanning's not that sophisticated, the clerks are under the impression that if its not in color, it's a fake, all these generics are showing up, and it's the typical ivory tower management Big Idea that dumps all the problems on the lowly employees on the front line.
It's a shame nobody getting paid that much money could have seen this one coming.
Or is it just a matter of any publicity being good publicity?
What a stupid promotion in the first place--KFC is a chain, it can be independently owned and operated. They're not under an obligation to honor the coupons.
KFC should blame it on the Mercury Retrograde http://astrology.about.com/od/advancedastrology/p/MercuryRetro.htm
white lorelei, interesting point.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone DID see it coming, but didn't mention it because then it would be his/her responsibility to fix. Fast. No overtime.
"Great catch, Sport! Don't forget to turn the lights off when you leave."
i think the real mix up is b/c oprah ate all the chicken. the rest is just spin.
Not worldwide, enty. Only Americans are eligible for the coupon.
I think it's great that they tried to do something positive with this, but as with any kind of promotion of this sort, there were bound to be problems. People will always want more, and I bet there are all kinds of people abusing the system i.e-printing out extra coupons. Used to happen at my old work all the time. Obviously, the biggest problem was always the lack of communication from the corporate offices.
Now I'm craving chicken. Thanks.