How Marketers and Agencies Are Trying to Strike the Right Tone in the Age of Coronavirus

Coors Light, Hershey's, KFC and others have dropped campaigns that could've crossed a sensitivity line

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Fast-food giant KFC debuted a new commercial recently that features 60 solid seconds of people eating chicken and then sticking their hands in their mouths. There’s no dialogue, just a lovely classical piano backdrop and lots of satisfied-looking diners ignoring their napkins. What better way to viscerally bring to life the iconic tagline “It’s finger-lickin’ good?”

Except that practice isn’t just a sign of poor table manners, it’s now actually a health hazard. With the onslaught of the novel coronavirus, consumers started complaining to the U.K.’s

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This story first appeared in the March 23, 2020, issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.