A new poster advertising campaign here in Hong Kong (I assume its confined to HK) for KFC employs quite possibly the most meaningless sloganeering ever used in advertising.
Below the words “KFC: so real”, a range of posters showing happy customers and staff read, “Real food”, “Real people”, “Real place”, one under the other.
What that says about KFC that can’t be applied to every other restaurant, I can’t fathom.
The question: what is the marketing merit in saying: “Real food, real people, real place” instead of saying simply: “KFC is good”, which has more of a message.
Obviously, a significant proportion of the posters’ audience here is non-English speaking, but that doesn’t seem a good reason to employ meaningless drivel. I presume the ad agency tasked with this campaign have some experience in the field, so what exactly are they trying to say with such nonsense?
Or doesn’t it really matter what is said as long as KFC is visible? And if that’s the case, we’re back to the question: why not just say “KFC is good”?
While the literal meaning is trivially true, there’s also an implied meaning which is not true of every other restaurant. I think what they’re meaning to imply by “Real people” is that it’s the kind of place and the kind of food that an ordinary average Joe would go to and eat (as opposed to, say, a five-star gourmet restaurant). Marketing agencies probably value slogans like this precisely because of the dual meaning: The literal meaning is clearly true, so they can’t fall afoul of truth in advertising laws or the like, but they still project a desired message to customers.
Marketing people focus group this stuff to death. I imagine they’ve found a big objection to KFC and similar crap is that it seems so artificial or full of chemicals. Now, although I believe fast food is generally crap, it’s not for those reasons. I’m aware that everything is composed of chemicals and that KFC is no more artificial than any other salty, fatty, flavour enhanced rubbish but the marketing isn’t aimed at me.
It’s aimed at people who think it’s not real and believe real is necessarily better.
Slogans are short and simple because a marketer’s dream is brand recognition: The almost subconscious association people have between slogans and the products they represent. Let’s try a small example:
[ul]
[li]The Real Thing[/li][li]Think Different[/li][li]The Best a Man Can Get[/li][li]Drivers Wanted[/li][li]The Uncola[/li][li]It’s What’s For Dinner[/li][/ul]How many of those do you instantly associate with a product?
I understand that. But your examples actually mean something.
“Real food” and “real people” - as explained above - I guess have a tenous grasp on meaning, but “real place”!!!
It’s continuing the theme. These things work best if your audience can hear the slogan and understand on a visceral level without engaging the higher brain functions. Trios work well because the human mind likes groups of three, for some unfathomable reason. Making sense on a rational level isn’t even relevant to the slogan they pick.
Focus groups probably played a big role in this as well, but it works for some pretty fundamental reasons relating to human psycology.
What Derleth said; these slogans are, in a sense, like programming instructions; not as absolute and infallible as those you’d issue to a computer, but they are creating or reinforcing patterns of thought that are not necessarily conscious or rational. Not all that many people who eat in McDonalds really are ‘lovin it’, but the phrase itself transfers impressions to the listener.
[semi-hijack] All I recognise is Gilette. And when I see “it’s what’s for dinner” I think of owlbears, because of somebody’s Usenet sig. I’ve heard all the rest before but I don’t associate them with anything in particular. I’m also not sure if “oh what a feeling” is Toyota’s advertising slogan, or Hyundai’s. Maybe I’m just weird. [/semi-hijack]