The KFC Chicken Shortage Crisis That Became a Masterclass
Picture this: the world’s most famous fried chicken chain runs out of chicken. In February 2018, KFC in the UK faced quite a crisis. They ran out of chicken. Yes, a chicken restaurant without chicken. Over 600 of their 870 UK stores had to close over issues with a new delivery partner (DHL). What could have been a complete PR catastrophe turned into something unexpected. In early 2018, the unthinkable happened: KFC—yes, the world’s most iconic fried chicken chain—ran out of chicken. It was a crisis so absurd, it sounded like a punchline. But it wasn’t. It was very real, very messy, and very public. Over 750 KFC outlets in the UK temporarily shut down. Instead of hiding behind corporate speak, KFC decided to own their mess in the most British way possible. They released a full-page newspaper ad featuring their famous bucket with the letters rearranged to spell “FCK” – basically saying what everyone was thinking. They issued a humorous apology in the form of an ad that rearranged their logo to spell “FCK” and admitted their mistake. This transparency and humor resonated with the public and turned a potential disaster into a positive brand moment.
KFC’s Gravy-Scented Candle: When Weird Actually Works
Leave it to KFC to make people want their homes to smell like fast food. As January drew to a close, Mother took the campaign one step further with the launch of a gravy-scented candle. The product was revealed on Blue Monday, with KFC serving up a spoof lifestyle video to targeted users on Facebook and Instagram. Consumers could click on the ads to enter their details and be in with a chance of winning one of 230 candles. Over 360,000 people entered the competition and the gravy candle made headlines in mainstream media – appearing in publications from LADbible to Highsnobiety and even making an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. But that wasn’t their only venture into the candle business. Candle company homesick just announced a limited-edition partnership with popular fast-food chain KFC (yeah, you heard that right) to bring a line of savory and sweet candles to your kitchen. Inspired by KFC’s “secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices,” these candles are available in two comforting scents: Bucket of Chicken Candle and Buttery Biscuit Candle. In addition to the candles, the collaboration also features a Bucket of Chicken Car Air Freshener, so you can get the smell of the second-largest chain restaurant in the world wherever you go. The genius here wasn’t just in the product – it was in how perfectly it captured KFC’s playful brand personality. While other brands play it safe, KFC embraces the absurd and somehow makes it work.
Bud Light’s Dylan Mulvaney Campaign: The $1.4 Billion Mistake
Sometimes a simple Instagram post can cost you more than a billion dollars. The world’s largest brewer may have lost as much as $1.4 billion in sales because of the backlash to its brief partnership with a transgender influencer to promote Bud Light beer. In an effort to reach new audience of Gen Z beer drinkers, Bud Light partnered with Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender woman and influencer with over 12 million followers across TikTok and Instagram. After Mulvaney’s collaboration with Bud Light appeared on social media, backlash from Bud Light’s conservative-leaning audience, including from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and musician Kid Rock, immediately appeared. In response, Bud Light distanced itself from Mulvaney while she was receiving transphobic comments from the brand’s community, while stating it, “Never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people.” The real disaster wasn’t the original campaign – it was how Bud Light handled the backlash. Bud Light’s lack of research on how its audience might perceive this influencer partnership set up the brand for failure from the beginning. Instead of responding immediately and supporting Mulvaney, Bud Light abandoned her at the height of the crisis. Sales continued to decline and by July 2024 Bud Light had slipped to third place, behind Modelo Especial and Michelob Ultra. Bud Light represented 6.5% of US beer dollar sales. The lesson? If you’re going to take a stand, you better be prepared to actually stand by it.
Quaker Oats’ Salmonella Scare: How to Handle a Health Crisis Right
Food safety scares can destroy brands overnight, but Quaker Oats showed how to handle a potential disaster with class. Quaker Canada faced a recall of 38 varieties of granola bars and Harvest Crunch cereals due to salmonella risks. They acted out of abundant caution and public concern for health and safety of its customers by recalling their products and working with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to ensure consumer safety. Their proactive recall was a smart move. Also, constant vigilance and regular safety checks are essential to avoid such situations in the first place. Quaker Canada faced its own PR crisis with a recall of 38 varieties of granola bars and cereals due to potential salmonella contamination. While their decision to issue a recall was a responsible move, the incident underscored the importance of food safety. Despite acting out of caution, the negative publicity surrounding such recalls can linger. What saved Quaker wasn’t luck – it was their willingness to put customer safety first, even when it cost them millions in lost inventory. They communicated early, often, and honestly about what happened and what they were doing to fix it. Customers are often left questioning their safety and the brand’s commitment to quality. For Quaker, a long-standing reputation was put on the line. While they handled the situation adequately, ongoing vigilance in quality control practices will be essential to restoring consumer confidence.
Jaguar’s Rebrand Disaster: Forgetting What You Actually Sell
Imagine spending millions on an ad campaign and forgetting to include your actual product. That’s basically what Jaguar did with their late-2024 rebrand. Jaguar’s late-2024 advertising campaign aimed to rebrand the luxury car company, but may have destroyed customer trust instead. The ad featured no cars, instead showcasing models with flamboyant outfits and hairstyles, which left viewers confused about the brand’s direction (and if they even still sell cars). It’s too soon to judge whether Jaguar’s relaunch was a PR disaster or masterclass – if the objective was simply to grab attention for its pivot to electric vehicles for the ultra-wealthy it succeeded, but sacking 85% of your audience is always a risky strategy and the androgynous TV adverts, without a car in sight, were rightly panned. To many, the language accompanying the relaunch – “we want people to feel rather than think” – smacked of Woke 101 and JLR’s chief creative officer Gerry McGovern seemed a bit too keen to polarise and enrage. The test will come when Jaguar must persuade its customers to part with more than £100,000 for one of its new models and it’s hard to believe that swapping the iconic Jaguar image for a logo more akin to a luxury handbag will help JLR meet that objective. The campaign generated attention alright – mostly from confused customers wondering if Jaguar still makes cars. Sometimes being bold means being smart, not just being different for the sake of it.
Kellogg’s “Affordable and Healthy” Cereal Lie
When you’re known for making sugar-coated cereals marketed to kids, claiming your products are health food is a tough sell. Kellogg’s could have created successful marketing campaigns by focusing on the real reasons people buy their cereal, such as convenience and flavor. But they tried to misrepresent their products as being affordable and healthy, which led to one of the biggest marketing fails of the year. The company tried to position their cereals as nutritious breakfast options while simultaneously targeting children with cartoon mascots and sugar-heavy formulations. The disconnect was glaring, and consumers weren’t buying it – literally. When you built your brand on Tony the Tiger and Froot Loops, pivoting to health food messaging feels more like gaslighting than marketing evolution. The real mistake wasn’t the health messaging itself, but the complete mismatch between what Kellogg’s actually sells and how they tried to position it. Authenticity in marketing isn’t optional anymore – it’s survival.
Ticketmaster’s Oasis Reunion Fiasco: Dynamic Pricing Gone Wrong
Nothing says “we care about our fans” quite like jacking up prices by 75% when they’re already in the virtual queue. American live music ticket marketplace Ticketmaster’s long been criticized for having too much of a monopoly over the global live music space – and 2024 was no exception. When tickets for Britpop band Oasis’s long-awaited reunion went on sale, frustrated fans dealt with hours of queues, losing their spots due to ‘bot-like behavior’, and prices up to 75% more than advertised. These unexpected price increases were thanks to ‘dynamic pricing’ – which adjusts ticket prices based on levels of demand. But what made it worse was how they handled the backlash. How Ticketmaster handled it: this debacle is a great example of a business passing the buck. Neither Oasis nor Ticketmaster released a holding statement. Instead, they moved straight to the blame game. Oasis’s spokesperson blamed Ticketmaster for the misstep. Ticketmaster blamed “promoters and artists” and commented that it was looking forward to cooperating with the subsequent investigation. This brief, defensive response failed to appease disappointed fans, and indicated that Ticketmaster hadn’t learnt from its much-criticized response to its 2022 PR trouble too. When you have a monopoly, you can get away with a lot – but you can’t get away from bad PR forever.
CrowdStrike’s Global Meltdown: When One Update Breaks the World
It’s not every day that a single software update manages to ground flights, shut down hospitals, and break computer systems worldwide. Only a few times in history has a single piece of code managed to wreck computer systems worldwide. The latest example is CrowdStrike. The cybersecurity firm released a faulty update to its Falcon Sensor Software, which caused a global IT outage affecting 8.5 million computers across various industries. The disruption led to significant operational challenges, including the cancellation and delay of thousands of airline flights. The root cause was a configuration file logic error, bypassing the company’s quality control mechanism. Aside from the technological disruption, the incident spiraled into a PR disaster. The company faced criticism regarding its crisis management and for being slow to issue a public apology. Early communication also lacked empathy and transparency. When your job is literally to protect other companies from cyber disasters, causing one yourself is particularly embarrassing. CrowdStrike’s delayed and tone-deaf response only made things worse. In crisis communications, speed and empathy matter just as much as technical fixes. The company learned the hard way that when you’re responsible for keeping the world’s computers running, you better have a better backup plan than “oops, our bad.”
Bumble’s Anti-Celibacy Campaign: Missing Your Own Point
A dating app that’s supposed to empower women probably shouldn’t shame them for being single. Bumble is the latest prime example of how a rebrand can alienate customers and hurt the brand. Early 2024 brought a new CEO and new software updates to Bumble to widen its appeal. This also included a new anti-celibacy campaign involving a nun and billboards using slogans “Thou shalt not give up on dating and become a nun.” The campaign’s portrayal of celibacy and use of religious references quickly drew criticism for being tone-deaf and misogynistic, as it appeared to condemn women for not engaging in casual relationships with men. Influencer Lauren Salaun captured the poor image of the campaign perfectly, stating, “Bumble is supposed to be a women-friendly dating app, and these ads are telling women how to date and what to do with their bodies.” The irony was thick enough to cut with a knife – a platform built on women making the first move was telling women they weren’t making enough moves. While Bumble took all the proper steps to mitigate the situation, many users remain unsatisfied. That’s why it’s vital to understand your audience’s sentiments and stay true to your core mission, even during a rebranding campaign or assembling marketing campaigns. Sometimes the best marketing strategy is remembering why people liked you in the first place.
The pattern is clear: the biggest food and beverage PR disasters happen when brands either abandon their core identity or handle crises with corporate cowardice instead of human honesty. Whether it’s KFC turning a chicken shortage into comedy gold or Bud Light losing billions by failing to stand behind their choices, authenticity and courage separate the survivors from the casualties. In today’s social media world, your response to a crisis matters more than the crisis itself – and pretending to be something you’re not is the fastest way to lose everything you actually are.
