coketalk: I keep seeing these new KFC ads...

I keep seeing these new KFC ads featuring pink buckets of chicken that ostensibly involve charitable donations to fight breast cancer via a campaign they call Buckets For The Cure.

Does anyone else find this a bit ridiculous?

This is like my coke dealer selling little blue baggies to support a charitable campaign for the Police Benevolent Association.

Until every single one of their original red buckets of chicken also include a charitable donation to fight cardiovascular disease and childhood obesity, how about we all just skip this corrupt middle man and donate directly to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, okay?

When I first read this I agreed with it. Now that I’ve thought about it, I don’t. For those who don’t know, for every bucket of chicken someone buys, KFC donates $.50 to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

I agree that this is at least a little stupid, but the people who are buying this chicken were probably going to buy it anyway. That is, it’s not such an enticing campaign that it’s likely to make people who would normally eat a salad go slam down a bucket of chicken parts. What it likely will do is entice people who were likely to eat fast food anyway - the only difference is the company selling them food they probably shouldn’t be eating.

In addition, it’s exposure for the Komen Foundation. Not that people are somehow unaware of breast cancer, but charitable causes sort of fade in and out of public consciousness whenever natural disasters and the other kind of disasters occur. If this reminds or somehow encourages people to make an actual donation to the Foundation, it’s worth their while.

So while I think KFC is kind of evil and that this is sort of dumb, I don’t think it hurts anyone, aside from tacitly encouraging KFC’s factory farms - though that’s not something they’re likely to change anyhow.