Of KFC, PETA, Potholes and Ruffled Feathers

By Robert Mackey and Ashley Southall

Last week, KFC (the company formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken) donated $3,000 to the city of Louisville, where KFC is based, to fill some of the city’s potholes and offered to do the same in four more American cities. Just one string was attached.

As the final paragraph of the company’s press release explained:

KFC-refreshed potholes will be branded via a large stencil that reads “Re-Freshed by KFC” in eye-catching, but non-permanent street chalk.

Here is a sample of a stenciled pothole catching the eye of an actor playing the company’s icon, Colonel Sanders, on a Louisville street:

INSERT DESCRIPTION Colonel Pothole: coming soon to a city near you?

While some people might question the wisdom, or safety, of letting corporations cover the nation’s roads with advertising slogans — particularly in return for such a small amount of money — the chain’s hometown leapt at the offer to fill 350 potholes.

“Budgets are tight for cities across the country, and finding funding for needed road repairs is a continuing challenge,” Louisville’s Mayor Jerry Abramson said in a joint statement with the company. “It’s great to have a concerned corporation like KFC create innovative private/public partnerships like this pothole refresh program.”

As Louisville’s WAVE 3 TV reported on Monday, the KFC program has already led to another offer to fill potholes in return for ad space on Louisville streets. According to WAVE’s Lindsay English, the animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) wants in on the act:

In a letter to Mayor Jerry Abramson, PETA proposed giving Metro Louisville $6,000 to repair potholes, twice as much as KFC gave the city just last week. The restaurant made the repairs and stamped their logo on the patched asphalt. PETA wants to do the same, but they want to add their own rendition of Kentucky Fried Chicken founder, Col. Harland Sanders. PETA depicts him as an evil Colonel Sanders, complete with horns, next to the tagline “KFC Tortures Animals”.

PETA blogger Jeff Mackey (no relation to your Leder) posted an image of the stencil the group would like to see on Louisville’s streets, along with this explanation:

INSERT DESCRIPTION PETA’s proposed pothole covering stencil.

KFC might concentrate instead on improving conditions for the chickens it abuses, but it won’t, so we’re offering to double the money that KFC offered the City of Louisville — if the city will use our ads against KFC cruelty on its potholes instead. After all, drivers have a right to hear the chickens’ side of the story — and it isn’t pretty.

Chris Poynter, a spokesman for Louisville’s mayor, said the city would “pass” on PETA’s offer, explaining to WAVE:

KFC is a great corporate citizen of ours. They employ lots of people in our town. They do great things for our hometown and we’re glad to work with them on this pothole program. But PETA, ummm … not so much.

KFC is continuing to look for other places to spread its asphalt love.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported on Tuesday that the city of Chicago is considering the offer — sort of. While the newspaper says that one Chicago official “raised questions about the quality of asphalt KFC intends to use,” the city’s mayor, Richard Daley — whose car hit a giant pothole and got a flat tire last week — said he would consider the offer if KFC would consider a somewhat larger donation:

“If they give us $25 million or $30 million, we’d be glad to look at it. . . . I want the money up front. I’ll take $50 million if you give me $50 million.”

Asked whether he was opposed to putting corporate logos on Chicago streets, Mayor Daley said, “It all depends if they’re ready to give 50, 60, 70, 80 million. There’s a lot of potholes out here.”

To give a sense of the scale of the problem caused by potholes in cities, transportation crews in Washington repair more than 220,000 potholes annually, at an average total cost of $900,000. On Monday, half way through a month-long “potholepalooza,” the city’s March campaign to clear winter potholes, road crews there had filled more than 3,300 craters, working at a pace of about 280 a day.

Comments are no longer being accepted.

george bailey March 31, 2009 · 5:09 pm

Oh dear, how to respond without offending the sensibilities of the Lede moderator ( aka “HAL”). Okay, here goes:

Once again the emotionally immature savants from PETA cannot just make a goodwill gesture to positively further their cause. No, they want to fix potholes with a negative caricature of a pop culture icon. While I am no fan of KFC (their greasy food hastens my body’s digestive process), why should they be brow beaten by PETA.

I am all for corporate sponsorship of pothole repairs, bridge replacements ( ie The Bridgestone Whitestone Bridge) and other underfunded municpal projects.

How’d I do, HAL ?

Caralea March 31, 2009 · 5:33 pm

“Once again the emotionally immature savants from PETA cannot just make a goodwill gesture to positively further their cause.”

A goodwill gesture? You think that was what KFC did when they offered to repair pot holes? It’s advertising, and it’s working just the way they intended it would if you come away thinking how benevolent KFC is.

All the more reason PETA should point how the hypocrisy in KFC’s kindly persona.

easi-lee March 31, 2009 · 5:34 pm

KFC and Colonel Sanders are easy targets. Yet they stepped up and saw an opportunity to promote their stuff and do something good. PETA is reactive, and that’s their problem. Their opportunity was to be equals with a giant conglomerate that has an ad budget large enough to wipe PETA out. But they are afraid of success, hence their juvenile attack on KFC.

I used to think PETA was a good thing, until I realized they care more for animals then they care for people. I recognize we are animals also, but I think that fact is an inconvenient truth for PETA.

Steve March 31, 2009 · 5:49 pm

Once again, PETA buys lots of free publicity with the cost of just one fax,

John W March 31, 2009 · 5:50 pm

Mr. Bailey — Why is it “emotionally immature” for PETA to criticize KFC for its business practices? You seem to be envisioning that PETA should “positively further their cause” simply by saying “animals good, yay animals, happy happy joy joy,” while not saying anything negative about the specific practices that they are trying to change (cruelty to animals). One can debate what approach would be better PR for PETA, but to call it “emotionally immature” strikes me as, well, emotionally immature.

harry March 31, 2009 · 5:56 pm

As a cyclist, I wouldn’t care if the potholes around here were filled-in courtesy of the Westboro Baptist Church, and bore whatever charming slogan the Rev. Phelps wished. As for the larger issue at hand, why not take advantage of the same motives that gave us Petco Park and Gillette Stadium, neither of which is of any civic utility, to enlist huge numbers of entities of more modest means to bankroll the countless little repairs and improvements that every community could use? And if PETA will deliver more pothole-repair bang for the buck than KFC, go with the high bidder.

WillT30 March 31, 2009 · 5:56 pm

I like PETA although some of their statements come off as very crazy. Some people are omnivores and they need to accept that (although factory farming has to end).
If the government is going to take private donations then, in my opinion, they cannot pick and choose. Would these same cities accept pothole advertisement from a KFC competitor? The roads are public and should remain so. The federal gov’t should just cut the military budget in half and then they could use my tax dollars to fix our cities.

WashingtonDame March 31, 2009 · 6:01 pm

PETA’s “devotion” to animal welfare is exposed as the joke it is when you read the statistics about the number of homeless animals it destroys every year. Complaints about KFC’s treatment of animals are sheer hypocrisy on PETA’s part.

SKV March 31, 2009 · 6:03 pm

It is worse than ludicrous that the city rejects PETA’s money to repair roads because they want to express their opinion of an advertising icon in erasable chalk.

Capriracer351 March 31, 2009 · 6:04 pm

YAY!! to KFC. BOO to PETA!!

I just had chicken tonight, but it wasn’t the greasy deep fried version, It was baked in my own oven with barbeque sauce.

April 25 I will go out in the woods and attempt to lure in a wild turkey.

KFC is just trying to improve their base city. PETA as usual is trying to de-base everything that they touch.

Penny March 31, 2009 · 6:23 pm

I guess when you seen what the corporations do to these defenseless animals – smashing them against the concrete floor, sodomizing them, ripping their wings off to name but a few – it’s hard to be easy going. If it were a puppy or a kitten, the response would be significantly different. Sometimes it’s difficult to not buy into the marketing strategy of a company and instead look at the fact that this company categorically refuses to put in place even the most basic provisions for these animals. I understand the negating of a “pop culture icon” is offensive to some, but it is so very difficult to be anything but passionately indignant about the abuse of those souls so dependent on our benevolence.

Dave March 31, 2009 · 6:27 pm

George B. —

On the contrary… why should we be so quick to provide cheap advertising to a company that treats us to such unhealthy food? PETA is willing to pay twice the price… should we not realize the market that exists?

To suggest that PETA is browbeating is to suggest that KFC is not… as a vegetarian, I strongly disagree. KFC browbeats me every time I watch a football game… but PETA wasn’t allowed to advertise during the Superbowl… there’s a double standard.

The problem, I posit, is that there is a trance-like state of thought that suggests ‘meat in every meal’ is natural… when it’s clearly not. Said trance is perpetuated by no allowing PETA to purchase the same advertising as KFC. And the result is that our country has enormous waistlines & a high incidence of heart-attack.

Yours,

David V.

Matt March 31, 2009 · 6:28 pm

easi-lee:

An inconvenient truth is that when you eat meat, you contribute to the suffering of animals. That’s the basic message of PETA. And a lot of people don’t like to be reminded of it. But that doesn’t make it go away.

Do you really think that KFC cares about people? If they did, would they serve food that’s so dangerously high in fat, sodium, and calories?

A pitiful $3,000 publicity stunt to fill in some pot-holes does not relieve KFC of responisibility for the slaughter of millions of animals, not to mention the obesity, heart disease, and cancer that its products cause — to people.

George Girton March 31, 2009 · 6:28 pm

What does PETA have against Los Angeles? Out here they just put up billboards with their advertising. They could have at LEAST offered to fill some potholes.

randia March 31, 2009 · 6:34 pm

all PETA had to do was make advertisements that said.. love animals? join PETA!..
it would direct more attention to their organization and at the same time reduce the amount of KFC ads ( which should reduce their profits, which I assume is part of what they are trying to do)

instead they wanted to cause a stir, which just makes people angry. real change is about engagement not just yelling your ideas at people

Penny March 31, 2009 · 6:40 pm

WashingtonDame
You are perpetuating a half truth. The animals euthanized by PETA are homeless with no hope of adoption, victims of horrific abuse and neglect, unsocialized “pets” that have been tossed into a backyard with a chain and a bowl and never touched. They are gently eased out of a world that has tortured and mistreated them by people that put the animals first. I guess when you see the most horrendous abuse day in day out, you realize that not all animals can be saved. Especially when we have a society that will not spay and neuter and instead of visitng shelters, purchase pets from stores stocked by puppy mills. So, yes, PETA does euthanize. Humanely. Have you seen baby chicks being processed? Have you seen them being tossed around like items, with the male baby chicks tossed into a dumpster as they are not suitable? Alive? Debeaked, DE-TOED, shoved into cages where they can’t move, standing on wire, stacked on top of each other from floor to ceiling in a dark filthy warehouse for their short lives and then ripped from their cages, sometimes tearing off legs to get them on the clamps so that they can be stunned, which rarely works and then scalded alive? Is this what you are comparing humane euthanasia to, WD? Really?
I think not.
See Ingrid’s response to this allegation on the PETA website or here:
//liberalvegantexan.blogspot.com/

tim March 31, 2009 · 6:43 pm

PETA could stand to spend $6000 advertising the countless adoptable pets it destroys.

Susan Kodner March 31, 2009 · 6:54 pm

If you agree or disagree with PETA, the fact remains that it sometimes takes a radical view to get attention and make changes. You wouldn’t find me chasing an oil tanker in a Greenpeace zodiac or dressed like a chicken at a protest but I’m glad there are those that do. I wish there were more people with tenacity and chutzpah who take action for what they believe in.

Janet March 31, 2009 · 6:54 pm

At least the KFC Corp. is honest about their goal of advertising for the purpose of increasing sales. That is straightforward. PETA never is. Their goal is total elimination of all domestic animals, by terroristic means, if necessary. But they don’t really want you to know that–you might stop supporting them with your dollars! That is why they kill most of the animals entrusted to them, and work at every possible level to legislate away our right to buy, keep, breed, enjoy, and use animals in our lives.

Adrian B. March 31, 2009 · 7:07 pm

There’s a much larger point here than KFC/PETA–the city, opening the door to purchasing space on public property, has no standing to pick and choose. If the American Nazi party or the Kentuckians For Revitalizing the Confederacy want to fill potholes and stencil them with chalk, what right has a government body to say, “this message we like, this message we don’t”?

Fred March 31, 2009 · 7:07 pm

PETA is a bunch of nutballs – any positive aspect of their efforts are offset by their extremist views….

W From Texas March 31, 2009 · 7:26 pm

PETA is my kind of group; People Eating Tasty Animals. Long Live PETA!!!!!!!

Veg Man March 31, 2009 · 7:30 pm

I represent PETT, People Eating Tasty Tofu. Tofu has been proven harmless to the enviornment and is a great stimulator of all things sexual. Please eat Tofu to save the planet.

Wax Threads March 31, 2009 · 7:34 pm

Safety?

If we’re worried about the distractions caused by a stencil, maybe we ought to rethink our billboards.

I’m all for this. At least someone’s willing to put money in the right place.

[WT, Where are those billboards on the road’s surface? — RM, Lede Blog]

Greg M March 31, 2009 · 7:55 pm

To anybody who can’t see the difference between PETA’s message and KFC’s consider the following two scenarios. First, if KFC had wanted to chalk up the roads with the message, “Burger King is Nasty,” there’s no way Louisville would have taken them up on it. Second, if PETA had wanted to sponsor the message, “PETA protects animals,” Louisville would almost certainly have accepted. The thing is, KFC’s actual message and PETA’s hypothetical message that I have proposed are both positive and civil and only attempt to improve the image of their sponsor. On the other hand, PETA’s actual message and the hypothetical message I have proposed for KFC say nothing positive about PETA and KFC respectively. They only denigrate a competing interest. Louisville’s reaction to both groups was completely reasonable.