I found this commercial to be unintentionally funny (or maybe it was intentional and all part of their master plan). They ask "what part of the chicken is nugget?" and then argue that their chicken is better because it's "popcorn" chicken. The word nugget, in this commercial, signifies something gross and unnatural that you shouldn't want to eat. KFC contrasts this with their popcorn chicken which signifies real, delicious meat. As a culture, I think we are weary of mystery meat and KFC tries to use this against there competitors by saying that their nuggets are "pressed, formed" mystery meat. We are argued into taking a position that popcorn chicken is better by being told via many different negative signs that chicken nuggets are bad and then given the good alternative as identified by various signs of a positive nature. It's ironic that they argue against nuggets when popcorn is also not part of a chicken. There are surely logical arguments that they could have made against their competitors that couldn't have been applied to them as well, but instead they tried to put the nuggets down based on how they could make us feel about them.
I feel like the same logic you are talking about is also used in politics a lot. Attack ads go after the opponents bad qualities rather than bringing up positive qualities of the candidate. I guess it's just one great big chicken joint competition out there. And I completely agree that it is hilarious that they are advertising "popcorn" chicken as more real than "nuggets". It's almost as if we don't identify with just chicken anymore. When did this happen? Somewhere along the way I suppose chicken wasn't seen as exciting enough and the industry decided to do something different. We could go on forever about this I think. It's a great observation.
ReplyDeleteI found this funny because I've had this same thought every time I see this commercial. They have made it very convincing that their "popcorn" meat is much much better than McDonald's "nugget" meat not by giving any real facts or data or anything, but just stating "Popcorn good. Nugget bad."
ReplyDeleteI also find it interesting that they don't actually have to say "McDonald's" in the commercial. It is taken for granted that people will automatically assume McNuggets when talking about chicken nuggets.