by Tim Girton
Ville Voice Eats Correspondent

When you’ve got a new product that has already flopped once, albeit in a slightly different form, how do you successfully reintroduce it to the American pubic?

Call Oprah and let her give it away for free.

That had to have been the thinking in the marketing department at Louisville-based Yum! Brands when repackaging the former boneless, skinless chicken and calling it Kentucky Grilled Chicken.The new product intro needed a really big marketing push. Critics say Yum! miscalculated public response to the free chicken giveaway.

In the company’s defense, it saw the handwriting on the wall years ago and changed the brand from Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC. Execs knew that the word “fried” was getting an image problem because consumers were associating the term with poor health and nutrition. By going with KFC, it wasn’t all about “fried” food.

But back to the brainstorming session, I can imagine that someone said, “What about Oprah?” You can see people patting each other on the back and placing some calls. Then Oprah goes on television and gives people free chicken. And because Ms. Winfrey said it, the country went nuts. There were so many redemptions of the Internet-provided coupon that KFC began to run out of its new product and started offering rain checks as the restaurants replenished supply.

Critics called it a public relations nightmare. How does a high-gloss chicken shack run out of chicken? How could Yum! have miscalculated so badly?

It didn’t. In reality, KFC performed a public relations masterpiece. Think about it. What is the main thing you want to do when you introduce a new product? Get people to try it.

Yum! did that. When you’ve miscalculated on Chicken Littles and Kentucky Nuggets, you need to get people to taste it. Due to this perceived screw-up, how many millions put it in their mouths?

It’s too early to tell the net effect of the promotion. Will people eat it and like it or will they return to Original Recipe or Extra Crispy as they have done so many times before? New products are always hit or miss, but keep in mind that in recent years, KFC gave us back popcorn chicken after a sufficient amount of time had elapsed to make us forget about how MC Hammer embarrassed himself by dancing for it.

The Kentucky Grilled Chicken promotion seems to hold a bit more promise. The entire marketing department deserves a two-piece meal today. Don’t make them wait on the rain checks.