Free Signs

You surely remember KFC’s recent, free-chicken blunder — the Oprah-announced promotion in which the company promised free chicken (fried, grilled?) to holders of downloaded coupons. As news sources reported, many franchise owners refused to cooperate, and coupon holders protested on the streets and the web. Properly done, the coupon concept would have worked. It was the usual “free” advertising routine, one designed to have people flock into the stores. Unfortunately, KFC’s corporate offices “fowled” the promotion’s communications, which caused many franchise owners to “pullet.”

Chris Anderson, Wired magazine’s editor, has recently written on free-offer advertising trends. Until recently, he says, practically everything offered “free” was a two-for-one deal, that is, a buyer acquired one thing free if they bought another. In that advertising model, manufacturers shifted the free cost to a second product. This model has changed, Anderson says, because, in the new, technology-based manufacturing world, product costs are rapidly falling. He examples China-made T-shirts selling at the same price as restaurant coffee.

Anderson points at both manufacturing technology and the Internet. He said the Internet is the most competitive market ever. “It s now clear that practically everything web technology touches starts down the path to gratis, at least as far as we consumers are concerned. [Electronic] storage now joins bandwidth (YouTube: free) and processing power (Google: free) in the race to the bottom.”

Will the “free” trend happen with signage? It already has. Any mall’s freestanding monument sign that comprises only the malls logo and an LED-based, electronic display board — which routinely displays the tenants’ store names — is providing free signage to those tenants, because, once such a sign is installed, narrowcasting the tenants name as an electronic display message is essentially without cost. Free.