Any event that gathers a lot of attention is now an opportunity for brands to barge into the conversation. The NCAA men’s basketball championships, aka March Madness, is no different.
For KFC, that’s meant following the games and offering up pithy tweets on the action. Most times these have been rather benign, but this afternoon it saw an opportunity to act fast in the aftermath of Stanford’s upset of Kansas. CBS showed an upset young Kansas fan crying in heartbreak. So naturally KFC saw a chance to sell some chicken to its nearly half million followers.
This wasn’t the best move. KFC backtracked a few minutes later by removing the tweet. It skipped the apology route in favor of acting like it never happened. The CBS decision to show the upset child provoked plenty of backlash, as noted by USA Today’s For the Win sports blog.
Give KFC credit. It acted quickly to realize making fun of a crying kid isn’t the best look for a big brand and took down the tweet before it elicited much backlash.
More in Marketing
Why angel investor Matthew Ball still believes in the metaverse
Matthew Ball’s 2022 book “The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything” was a national bestseller in the U.S. and U.K. On July 23, he plans to publish the second edition of the book.
Marketing Briefing: Why sustainability is ‘not a priority’ for marketers right now
Anecdotally, there have been noticeably fewer requests from marketers on ways to market sustainability efforts in recent months, according to agency execs, who say that requests had been commonplace in the late 2010s and early 2020s.
‘We’re watching the war’: Tubi hits growth spurt, but isn’t part of the streaming wars, CMO Nicole Parlapiano says
On the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, Tubi CMO Nicole Parlapiano shares her perspective on the so-called streaming wars, pitching Tubi’s multicultural viewers and the streaming platform’s growth track.