A Marketer's Review of Recipe for Seduction

Did KFC and Lifetime hit the mark?

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It was a short 15 minutes, packed with flavor. The latest chapter in the saga of sexy Colonel Sanders played with a treasure trove of stereotypes, branded red and white colors used in various scenes—and perfectly placed fried chicken.

It was what good fried chicken is: messy, loud and able to tap into your hunger when it’s the only thing that will do. Most marketers believe that storytelling is crucial to marketing. KFC has decided to do just that. 

The scene opens with a large estate decorated for the holidays with twinkle-light adorned bushes. A dinner table set with china, wine glasses and the ubiquitous fried chicken complete the upper crust dinner. A matriarch named Bunny and a boyfriend, Billy Garibaldi (the III, no less), finish the ensemble, adding the final touch to this upstairs/downstairs drama. 

It had it all. Evil music swells when the mom is lurking and spying on the daughter. There is the setting of a country club—and a polo mallet used as a weapon. Garibaldi shows up attired  in a light, blue blazer and salmon khakis, looking as if he missed his chance to be the new face of Brooks Brothers. 

The aggressive matriarch pushes for the engagement between Billy and her daughter, Jessica, to save the family from its financial hardships. The dynamic paints Jessica’s mother as a modern-day amalgamation of Kris Jenner and Mrs. Bennett (Jane Austen would be honored, I guess.)

Within minutes of meeting, Jessica and Harland (aka “sexy Colonel Sanders”) take a short walk around the estate, immediately sharing their deepest secrets. Love sprouts quicker than a drive-thru order. The promise of a world-changing secret recipe further encourages the passion between the two. 

The drama continues as others discover the affection between them. A gay, Black best friend works to expand and advance the plot, as the mother’s Graduatesque antics come to light; she has had an affair with Billy and promises more. 

There is violence and a presumed cliffhanger. And we are left with the Lifetime TV movie equivalent of a messy TikTok. 

This KFC campaign is intriguing. It’s precisely positioned during a year where escapism is king, and we have seen the likes of Tiger King take over the social media landscape. With the Queen’s Gambit increasing the popularity of chess, can this type of storytelling do the same for KFC? 

The sexy Colonel Sanders trope isn’t natural. It’s also the point: he appears as a caricature. It’s a heightened, hyperbolic idea of what a sexualized Colonel Sanders would be. That makes the whole idea come across as more playful—it’s the joke, and the appeal is that we’re all in on it. 

It isn’t a surprise that when the Lifetime mini-movie trailer came out, the primary questions were: Is this real? Is this a thing? Lifetime’s sharing of the same assets proved to validate the existence of the world created by this KFC soap opera. As the trailer made the round of social media, marketers and fast food fans alike waited for something that would hopefully be so bad it was good. Some watched out of curiosity. Others anxiously hate-watched. It was going to be a crispy feast for the senses. It didn’t disappoint. 

This melodrama’s steadily rising perspective demonstrated two things: not only can the brand capture the very concept of multimedia by presenting multi-genre options for its audience, it can do so while not taking itself so seriously.

The inclusion of Mario Lopez as the titular entrepreneur is an interesting choice. Having KFC’s parody drama distributed through Lifetime is equally compelling. Both signify a clear focus on millennials and older audiences with a cable, Sling, or Hulu subscription to watch. If trying to reach a younger audience, it’s easy to see that the Gen Z equivalent of this is an episodic TikTok. 

The playful, over-the-top nature of the movie shows that both KFC and Lifetime are, in a sense, making fun of themselves and popular romance tropes for the sake of guilty pleasure. There is a reason we crave fast food. The immediacy of being satiated with comfort food is akin to consuming this kind of quick-bite video.

Just as you aren’t grabbing a filet mignon at a Michelin star restaurant every day, you probably aren’t watching documentaries daily either. In a year where we have all tried to cope in our own ways, little bursts of content that make us laugh, even at our own inflated sense of irony and kitsch,, feels like a release—like breaking the crunchy skin of a piece of chicken with your first bite. It doesn’t have to be pretty; it just has to be satisfying. 

You don’t have to be in the marketing industry for long before you start seeing a common trend of thought leaders and webinars espousing the power of storytelling. That is precisely what KFC is doing here. 

Most importantly, KFC and the actors know what this is. There is no place for subtlety here. The villains are over the top. Malevolent music plays when the mother follows and spies on the daughter. There are evil cackles; violence escalates quickly. Then there’s strategic product placement. Even the preppy clothing choices are intended to shock those of us who have lived in leggings and sweatshirts the past nine months. 

The way the action pushes us to prefer the chef versus the competing rich khaki-clad love interest is a nod to the classic depictions of the wealthy/help dynamic. That subtext also reflects KFC’s message to the irony-expectant viewers: sometimes you want fast food over a home-cooked meal or an experience from a high-end restaurant. It becomes an embrace of what you want instead of what you think you should have. KFC’s The ultimate subject of KFC’s Lifetime movie is “desire over expectation.” 

And that brings us to the truly big question of the KFC/Lifetime combo bucket: Did the show make anyone hungry? 

Marketing isn’t just about putting a message in front of an audience. My husband watched it with me and said he wanted KFC afterward. Within minutes of my tweeting about the mini-movie, KFC responded with a link to order and have it delivered to my home. If the mini-movie was the bait, KFC’s social media team listening for chatter, and engaging for orders, sealed the deal. 

Good marketing gets your attention. Great marketing takes that attention and finds opportunities to make you take action. 

KFC used its content and its Lifetime alliance to create a seamless touchpoint for fans and viewers. On top of that, it employed campaign distribution plus social engagement to remove barriers to convert. Altogether, it was a fun and well-executed guilty pleasure. 

Comfort food and comfort TV to the rescue.

Four out of five drumsticks.