KFC's DVR-Only Commercial

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/20/kfc-claims-victory-in-dvr-only-commercial/' target='_blank'>http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/20/kfc-claims-victory-in-dvr-only-commercial/</a><br /><br /></div><i>"About a month ago, KFC ran an experimental commercial designed to be viewed only by DVR owners; the spot contained a single frame of a code word entitling viewers to get a coupon for a free chicken sandwich. Now, KFC is claiming that the ad (which ABC actually banned as subliminal advertising) was a success, pointing out that over 100,000 people snagged the coupons, and traffic to KFC's web site surged by 40% the week after the ad ran."</i><br /><br />Has anyone seen this? It sounds like an interesting experiment on KFC's part, though when I think about how I jump through commercials on my MCE 2005 machine - 30 seconds at a time - I likely wouldn't have seen this at all. I think it would only work on DVRs that relied on a fast-forward function rather than a skip function for getting past commercials, right?

[Damion Chaplin]

I have not seen it. If I had seen it, I probably would have gone to KFCs site and complained. Sure, this time it was a simple coupon, but they're saying it was successful, so how long do you think it will be something else? "You love KFC. You trust KFC. KFC is your friend. You will give all of your money to KFC. You want a career at KFC."

As far as being able to see it is concerned, while I can't skip commercials 30 seconds at a time, we almost always hit the FF button 3 times for maximum speed. It shows maybe 1 second of every 10. In addition, if for some reason we've failed to fast-forward, we always hit it when any KFC or McD's or Gap (or any other glaringly annoying) commercial comes on... In fact, the only people I can think of that saw it when it aired are the ones that didn't FF through the commercials, but rewound it when they saw the frame flash by. They were probably watching 'live' TV, so they couldn't FF and instead had to suffer through the ads.