Love it or hate it, KFC’s ‘Double Down’ burgers were a triumph of word-of-mouth marketing in New Zealand.

KFC reported it had sold 16,000 of the burgers in just three hours on the day of launch and more than 34,000 by 4.00 pm the same day – all without any traditional advertising whatsoever.

Media coverage included slots on state broadcaster TVOne’s Close Up and Breakfast programmes, and TV3’s Campbell Live; as well numerous mentions on commercial and national radio as a news item.

But the real force in driving up sales were blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms where people could share their support or outrage at the 600 calories, carbohydrate-free ‘gut-filler‘. Me blogging about it now is a perfect case in point, even it I’m focusing on the marketing element of the campaign, rather than the product itself! Read the rest of this entry »