Did someone say … electrical safety? KFC ad in trouble over surprising reason
An iteration of KFC’s ongoing “Did someone say KFC?” campaign was asked to discontinue by Ad Standards due to a surprising complaint.
The TVC depicts a house-party scene where a woman realises her phone is flat. She unplugs a cord from a power cord and accidentally turns off the music. The crowd stares at her, and she says the well-known catchphrase: “Did someone say KFC?”
The complaint, while surprising but valid, said the advertisement shows multiple power boards and double adapters being plugged into a clearly overloaded power board.
It explained that the ad depicts a dangerous practice that can lead to various risks including electric shock, damage to electronic devices, and house fires.
The Ad Standards panel upheld the complaint, noting that “historically, people have been advised not to overload power boards by plugging many appliances in at once”.
“The Panel considered that showing an overloaded powerboard such as the one in the advertisement would be considered by most members of the community to be normalising if not promoting unsafe behaviour.”
KFC has since said they will retouch and edit the TVC to remove the overloaded power board.
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Darcy Song was a reporter at Mumbrella, covering media owners, adtech and social platforms. She left in October 2023.
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As long as you don’t exceed 10A, you can have 10 power boards and it wouldn’t make it any less safe than running two heaters on the same outlet even without a powerboard.
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