How logistic inconveniences in KFC ignited crisis

KFC Crises
The public relations (PR) department cannot be excluded when an organization is termed as a top competitor or well-established. The department contributes significantly to the existence of an organization, business entity, or individual in the public and business arena. PR is what connects various audiences to a specific organization on its focus. Elucidating on that ensures that the audiences are reached with the intended message, and that can be done through various influencing ways. It is also, therefore, crucial for an organization to know its audiences as they play a significant role in responding to the message or a situation that the company can be addressed, like a particular crisis(Page & Parnell, 2017). Media has been playing a primary role in PR in communicating to audiences successfully. Paid, earned, shared, and owned media (PESO) as a model helps the organization to see its intended communication message insightfully from various perspectives and hence, see the bigger picture when it plans to communicate. The paramount roles of PR, in addition to PESO, are apparent and well portrayed by KFC’s Chicken Crisis experienced in February 2018, where it ran out of chicken, causing an almost complete collapse of its operation in the UK. Many of its shops were shut down, and the whole crisis influenced negative sentiment internationally, unfavorable media coverage, and rage among customers. However, through its indistinctive use of PR and PESO, it was able to manage the crisis in a way that pleased its international audiences. Discussing the following will gives a bigger picture of PR and PESO; how logistic inconveniences in KFC ignited the crisis, how it became an organizational crisis, how it used Paid, Earned, and Owned media to quickly settle the crisis, and finally, why Paid and Earned media were the paramount tools to it endeavors in the crisis.
The KFC crisis was influenced by logistic inconveniences and a lack of its ingredients- chicken, hence, moved its customers- audiences to express their indignation reactions on various media platforms. Priday (2018) reveals the inside story in the wired.co.uk article that the company apparently used DHL logistics company to move the chicken from the depot to the necessary destinations to be prepared and served in their stores. Unfortunately, the deliveries were unceremoniously delayed because the delivery trucks remained stuck as there was an accident in the vicinity of the DHL’s warehouse, and the road was temporarily crossed by police for investigations (Priday, 2018). Moreover, there was no other warehouse the stores could have received ingredients from, and that was the start of the crisis as KFC started experiencing a shortage of chicken. In effect, only 266 of 870 KFC restaurants were operating after two days (Friday, 2018).
The issue experienced by KFC was an organizational crisis that significantly disrupted its operations which definitely translated to financial downfall. The temporary closure of numerous restaurants identified meant an operational disruption in the stores, and worse, there was no income generation, and both define the organizational crisis(Page & Parnell, 2017). It is always important for an organization to prepare in advance for an organizational crisis and how KFC was hit by the crisis can be questioned. Although their exceptional use of PR and PESO model to ease the situation, KFC could have minimized the risk of shortage if they had developed a precrisis plan. Through it, they could have identified potential risks and planned accordingly(Page & Parnell, 2017). For instance, they could have examined the issue of relying on a single warehouse and the potential crisis risk it withheld.
KFC mostly utilized Paid media to respond and communicate to the audiences, which emerged successful in its fight to reinstate its reputation. After the shutdown, the entity was in a serious crisis stage where it needed to respond to already overreacting audiences and, at the same time, solve the existing problem(Page & Parnell, 2017). Notably, social media enables an entity in a crisis to easily and directly access its audience, and that is what KFC exploited(Page & Parnell, 2017). It used social media platforms by making humorous but informative ads to address its issue. For instance, Twitter published questions and answer content exceptionally to make various confirmations. Agreeably, the entity portrayed a degree of crisis checklist preparation because it had a targeted audience in terms of language use. It used a playful tone to target a young audience (Jenkins, 2021), and it was a positive translation that knowing what is appropriate for your audience counts crucially in crisis management(Page & Parnell, 2017). Additionally, it used the social media platforms- Facebook and Twitter to keep its audience updated, and more so, it used them to debunk unnecessary rumors (Jenkins, 2018). Its activities in social media revealed that the entity had a well-equipped social media personwho would make necessary responses to the customers and that accelerated crisis management (Page & Parnell, 2017). KFC also moved further to use earned media to manage the crisis.
KFC also used Earned media by utilizing printing media to convey its message to more audiences. It used full pages in most read newspapers in the UK, like The Sun and Metro, with ads that later turned as a gateway to numerous other press articles (Brownsell, 2018). The use of earned media explained an extended way to reach other audiences apart from younger ones targeted in social media platforms. It, therefore, means that the earned media was their way to reach minority audiences. The readership estimation of the earned media was six million (Brownsell, 2018); hence, it ensured that the message had reached vast audiences in the region. The ads in the newspaper also had the same goal as those ads in paid media and also used the same strategies. In this case, the importance of newspaper as an earned media could have easily been overlooked, especially if the focus was put only on positive feedback on social media platforms. It also upgraded its owned media to keep its customers around.
KFC created and used its website and phone app to give a list of available restaurants and offer rewards to its customers and those who were affected by the crisis, respectively. Using its website and its phone app indicates the use of owned media. It also thrived in the use of owned media by providing relevant and valuable content. That included providing a list of available and operating restaurants to its customers and also rewarding through phone applications (Scott, 2018). Such was valuable to ensure that they kept their targeted consumers around them, and it defined successful content (Bonchek, 2014).Furthermore, that strategy could easily influence thecommunity element of owned media because the consumers would spread that company move to their fellows and, in essence, get curious to check in the phone app or visit the website.
Agreeably, KFC excellently used Paid and Earned media to settle the crisis. It used both media to clearly show that it took the correct action on the crisis; it offered a public apology and did not try to blame its logistic partners for the crisis(Scott, 2018).The use of paid and earned media reinstated their customers’ trust as they portrayed transparency rather than hiding the crisis using PR. Their transparency was characterized by publishing an ad with an empty chicken bucket with the company’s name abbreviation KFC rearranged and rewritten expletively (Brownsell, 2018).However, the entity underscored using other earned channels like television as less is mentioned about the company’s spokesperson presenting on TV.The company could have done more by engaging in television interviews to express its message live as its audiences follow.
Ultimately, KFC displayed the unmatched use of the PESO model in crisis management. Though struck by an unprepared organizational crisis, the company was able to recover swiftly through the use of the model. As it unveiled, identifying the most effective media can enhance crisis management and also knowing the appropriate action to take when communicating to the audiences on crisis can have impacts on their trust towards an entity. PESO model is therefore inevitable tool in any organization in case of a crisis.

References
Brownsell, A. (2018). KFC: A very fck clever campaign. Campaign.https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/kfc-fcking-clever-campaign/1498912
Bonchek, M. (2014). Making Sense of Owned Media. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2014/10/making-sense-of-owned-media
Jenkins, G. (2021). How KFC turned a delivery crisis into a PR masterclass. No Brainer Agency.https://www.nobraineragency.co.uk/blog/media-relations/how-kfc-turned-a-delivery-crisis-into-a-pr-masterclass/
Scott, D. M. (2018). How KFC Turned Fiasco Into Fandom.https://www.davidmeermanscott.com/blog/kfc-runs-out-of-chicken-in-uk-apologizes-with-clever-adverts-and-timely-content
Page, J. T., & Parnell, L. J. (2017). Introduction to strategic public relations: Digital, global, and socially responsible communication. Sage Publications.
Friday, R. (2018, February 21). The inside story of the great KFC chicken shortage of 2018. WIRED UK. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/kfc-chicken-crisis-shortage-supply-chain-logistics-experts