Television Commercial Audience Analysis

Company: Kentucky Fried Chicken

Product: Takeout chicken and sides: 10 Piece Fingerlicking Feast
Reference air time: Sunday 7/2/00 approximately 8:20 PM

Message This Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) commercial suggests that their meals are perfect for picnics, especially impromptu picnics and parties whenever and wherever friends get together. 

The message attempts to overcome objections the viewer might have to this message by establishing:

  • Picnics are not just formal barbecue and red checkered tablecloth affairs
  • KFC is real and wholesome food
  • KFC is fun and in style for young, busy, and upwardly mobile people
The commercial targets the market for summertime takeout food while at the same time working toward strengthening market position with a young, upwardly mobile, middle class audience.
Audience The content and style is very different than KFC's older commercials featuring The Colonel, or more recent commercials featuring animation and rap music.  This commercial is directed toward a new audience segment.
  • Based on the pace of the commercial, the characters in the commercial, and the types of activities shown, the commercial targets a range of ages;
    • Early 20's to 30's who are partying with friends
    • 30's with young families
  • Educational Background is less clear than age, but the people the audience is supposed to identify with and/or emulate in commercial appear somewhat sophisticated and upwardly mobile.
  • The commercial appears to target male and female audiences equally
  • Based on the types of things shown as the good times for KFC, the target audience is middle class.  The middle class activities shown include;
    • Bicycling (serious road biking with helmets and jerseys, not coasting around the neighborhood)
    • Hanging out on small sailboat with family
    • Watching fireworks with friends in nice convertible
Program Design
& Presentation Strategies		 In order to appeal to the young, sophisticated, middle class audience discussed above, the presentation is tailored through;
  • Writing
    • The script is colloquial, appealing to young audiences but not so informal as to sound uneducated
    • The message emphasizes that this is real wholesome food, to appeal to middle class sentiment and capitalize on guilt some parts of this audience may have over not making home cooked meals 
    • The importance of family and friends to this audience is used to evoke sentimental feelings and goodwill through the script as well as through other elements
  • Overall Style
    • Fast pace and quickly varying camera angles communicate a hectic but fun attitude intended to appeal to the fast paced lifestyle of the target audience
    • People smiling and having fun with each other pack every frame, helping to evoke the good feelings for friends and family in the audience
  • Visual Elements
    • The backdrop for all the people enjoying themselves is summertime sunny days and fun filled nights.  The target audience consists of students off for the summer and young families working for summertime weekends to spend outside with families.  Summertime is a sentimental time for this audience.
    • Vivid colors, with lots of red, white, and blues along with fireworks tie in feelings of patriotism and association with the 4th of July both to further stir sentiment and reinforce the summertime feelings of fun.
  • Music
    • The pace is instantly set in the first seconds with an opening drum roll
    • Upbeat music with a strong percussion beat and a face pace throughout reinforces the fast pace theme and the upbeat feelings
  • Voice
    • The one voice that narrates the commercial is a young (early 30's) male, slightly on the older end of the range of the target audience to be able to communicate with some authority but not so old as to be out of touch. 
    • The voice is relaxed, cool, and very American with a touch of pride.  It is very much like the voice in a Corvette commercial.
    • There is almost an edge of a challenge or a dare in the KFC standard; "So, Come on down" intending to stir an audience that is up for a challenge.
  • Pacing
    • The 30 second commercial is paced fast to deliver the message to an audience with a short attention span.
    • The pace is also part of the "anytime, anywhere" message by showing that getting KFC allows the face paced audience to keep up in fast paced lifestyle.
Outcomes To judge the effectiveness of this commercial, KFC producers can look for overall increase in takeout sales in general and also increased sales in the Fingerlicking Feast product featured.

To judge how well the target audience was addressed and whether they responded, changes in overall takeout sales should be broken down by store location.  This would be done to see whether a store in a middle class suburban area or recreation area saw a greater response after the ad was run versus response to ad in urban and/or less affluent areas.

All comparisons would have to be normalized for previous years' summertime effects on purchasing patterns.

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