Forking Tasty

With a name like that there was no need to craft a witty title to this post. When I first saw the commercial for this revolutionary new sandwich from Kentucky Fried Chicken…ohhh, sorry should I say Kentucky Grilled Chicken because…

Really? Colonel, you ain’t foolin’ nobody. I digress. The first time I saw this sandwich I went wild. It was a weird mix of joy and disgust. I’m not the biggest KFC fan to begin with, so there are no historical facts or child hood memories that I drew from in assessing this new menu item. Let’s first break it down and then we can get back to the analysis.

The Double Down Sandwich deconstructed

Ingredients:
2 fried chicken breasts
2 pieces of bacon
2 slices of cheese
a mayo based secret sauce

For those who aren’t quite getting it yet, peek at this. We compared the Double Down with the most famous fast food sandwich of all time to make our point.

Ahhh, now you get it. Boat loads of meat in this thing. It goes above and beyond any other sandwich on the market. Carl’s Junior’s $6 burger included. Substantially more than the Mac. (In and Out’s secret menu obviously excluded. Disclosure just in you are about to argue you can order 100 patties stacked on top of each other with out buns. Ohh and if you do that, stop. You are sick.) So, what are we to make of this? Genius or fool? We can not properly answer that question with out factoring in taste. As I approached the counter I realized the DD comes in two options, grilled or fried. I immediately became over zealous and ordered both. quickly I recanted and knocked the grilled version off my order. Left with the original friend DD I ventured the two blocks home to deconstruct and then taste the unique sammy. On the way home a passed a couple and caught a snippet of their conversation. “If you do that, I will treat you to a KFC Double Down.” she proposed to her boyfriend as his eyes widened and an ear to ear smile took over his face. Not a bad endorsement as I clutch my grease spotted paper bag tighter and sped my saunter to power walk speed.

Back at home I quickly opened up the DD to get a quick peek of what was inside. I kept conscious of eating it as hot and fresh as possible to best assess the tasty. That would be quite fair had I let it cool. Plus, I believe things are made to be consumed immediately. At least that is how I like my food eaten.

Not the prettiest of insides and quite the week piece of bacon but lets refer back to the illustration above. We are still far and away more meat packed than any other sandwich on the market today. Quickly putting it back together I sunk my teeth deep into the end of this meat monster. My teeth cut through the layers with a slightly foreign struggle as my tongue did its work deploying taste buds to grab all the flavor. Amazingly as I hit each layer, fried crust to chicken to crust again to cheese to bacon to sauce and through the bottom chicken breast, I tasted all the distinct flavors in military like sequence. Once the bite was in my mouth the flavor party pooled together and everyone was happy, especially me. Chomping down the rest of the DD in record time I said out loud, “I could do another one of those!”

For a kid who is not a big Fast Food fan we got ourselves a winner in the Kentucky Fried Chicken Double Down Sandwich. The whole reason for this post was because I thought that the sandwich was innovative. Because I spend a lot of my day thinking about and crafting marketing plans for different products, it stuck with me. There is a debate around the idea that marketing can only be effective if the product delivers. Thinking through this, KFC is at the top of the chicken game with Popeye ‘s and Boston Market behind them BUT, they are still innovating their product. A definate plus and smart move any leader can learn from. The marketing was pretty basic for this new sandwich but the product is so standout that KFC did’t really need to do much much more than show it to grab interest. The fact that it delivers on taste starts the Word of Mouth machine working. I hope the DD sticks around. It is a nice little quick hit indulgence when I get that fast food hankering. Nice Job KFC…uhh…KGC…or whatever you are calling yourself these days. Branding and identity, that’s a whole different marketing problem. Not for this post.