I recently read an article called "Can Eating Junk Food Cure Breast Cancer?," which dealt with KFC's new sandwich, the "Double Down."
If you haven't seen this "sandwich," already, it consists of bacon strips and melted cheese sandwiched by two pieces of deeply friend chicken.
For most people, me included, my first reaction was of disgust. As a lover of KFC, I can't lie and say I'm not intrigued - I would try it just to try it. But obviously, it's a disgusting product for anybody even remotely worried about their health.
For this reason, this sandwich has been hard to market. KFC has taken an alternate approach to marketing, using something called pinkwashing, defined by the U.S,-based group, Breast Cancer Association, as "a term used critically of corporate campaigns and practices in which the sponsoring companies position themselves as leaders in the struggle to eradicate breast cancer while engaging in practices that may be contributing to rising rates of the disease." A well-known case of this is Yoplait's "Pink Lid" Campaign to end breast cancer while their yogurt contained milk with the RBGH hormone, which has been proven to increase risk of breast cancer (Yoplait has since stopped using milk containing this hormone).
KFC's "Double Down" contains 32 grams of fat and 1,380 milligrams of sodium. To distract from their obesity inducing sandwich, they have launched a "Buckets for a Cure" campaign to donate towards breast cancer by selling chicken in pink boxes.
KFC has vowed to donate 50 cents for every bucket sold, with a minimum donation of $1 million dollars. KFC plans to donate around $8 million dollars from this campaign.
"The American Institute for Cancer Research says there is 'convincing evidence' that excess body fat increases the risk of postmenopausal breast cancer. Obesity is also tied to shorter survival rates for women who develop breast cancer." This is an obvious form of pinkwashing to make KFC look better. Imagine if all the money people spent on chicken were actually donated to breast cancer (instead of 50 cents per bucket) - the results would be drastically more positive.
This is a classic case where a company does something that may appear to be with good intent, but turns out to be for its own benefit.
Sources:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/9017
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pinkwashing
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2893204/kfc_unveils_pink_buckets_for_breast.html?cat=5
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Jon Monna
Greta Niu
Rkumar
C Wright
Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
This ties in with the idea of the packaging being everything. To a lesser extreme, Minute Maid just changed their bottles. A friend of mine recently told me that she bought a bottle of their apple juice because it was new and looked pretty. Turns out, it was different on the outside, but the same sugary gross on the inside. As she put it, she's a "sucker for the display." We all are. I think it's human nature. And it really makes me mad that it is being exploited. But this certainly isn't the first time and it certainly won't be the last time such tactics are used. It is a business after all.
I am disgusted by KFC and their "tricky marketing." Of course they are far from the only fast food company to use similar tactics, but my distaste for them goes beyond their good-guy pink campaign.
Nothing's at all wrong with raising money towards a cure for an incurable disease. However, putting on such an admirable face as a front to cover the truth is disgusting. And the truth is that in addition to marketing food that is unhealthy past all reason, KFC tortures their animals, brutally and unnecessarily.
Animal torture AND heavy contributions to the American obesity epidemic? Possibly even adding to increasing rates of breast cancer? That's okay, have a sticker and eat some more chicken. It'll cure cancer, AIDS and the common cold.
Ugh. Way to be, KFC.