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I’d like to know what the creative strategy was behind this "Sad Day for the Ice Cream Man" spot.

Perhaps some VP said:  "Let’s promote our cheap soft serve cone by showing how we destroyed a beloved American icon – the ice cream man – by undercutting him with lower prices and even lower, mass produced quality.  The faces of broken, middle aged men who can no longer support their families will surely send sadistic consumers to the monolithic chain for some cheapo, tasteless cones!"

As stated on Franchise Advertising: Sad Day for the Ice Cream Man… & Burger King on Franchise Pick:

I can’t wait to see what they’ll come up with next… maybe homeless, hungry ex-competitors being shooed away from a Burger King dumpster?  Now that would be a hoot.

Hat tip to Ad Freak  Commercial spot by Crispin, Porter, Bogusky

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Doc Green’s Franchise Owners Seeing Red

“Franchise owners of Raving Brands franchise concept Doc Green’s are raving mad.  According to the Naples News, six franchise owners are suing the Atlanta-based multi-concept franchisor for allegedly misrepresenting the success of the franchise concept and the franchise system.”

Franchisees Allege Franchisor Filled Restaurant With Free Food Giveaway Before Store  Tour

Yep. The Old Free Food Coupons Before the Discovery Day Visit.  Never fails.

Only this time, they sued.  The franchisees allege that the company created a “fraudulent scheme” to make their only restaurant appear wildly successful.  How?  Says Naples News:  “When potential franchisees visited the company-owned Doc Green’s, the company gave out coupons for free food, ‘particularly aggressively’ so the restaurant would appear busier than it really was, according to the suit.”

The plaintiffs also allege Raving Brands failed to rave about their brand as promised, providing inadequate marketing and promotion, failing to establish a National Advertising Fund, and providing little help with business operations.

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Defunct Weight Loss Centers May Have Broken Law MIAMI (CBS4) ― When one of the state’s biggest diet companies shut it’s doors after the beginning of the year, it left hundreds of South Florida customers not only wondering if they’d ever get their money back but also what happened to all the private medical information the centers kept on file. State prosecutors, wondering the same thing, have widened their investigation into LA Weight Loss Centers and Pure Weight Loss Centers to see if they broke any laws. “All girls want to look nice and I got a couple of pounds extra,” said Yaumary Rodriguez who originally signed up with an LA Weight Loss Center several years ago. Rodriguez said by staying on the plan she lost 24 pounds in the past year. “My goal was 30 pounds but when I got down to 24,” said Rodriguez, “I decided not to keep losing more” At the beginning of the year, Rodriguez said she decided she needed to go back on the LA Weight Loss Center plan to help her drop a couple of pounds she picked up over the holidays. When she went to her local LA Weight Loss Center in Cutler Bay on January 4th to pick up her next shipment of weight loss bars, she said she was stunned to find that it had changed it’s name to Pure Weight Loss. She received her second shock when she was informed that the store, which was still filled with LA Weight Loss products, was closing down. “The companies were closing,” Rodriguez said she was told, “it was the last date of work for the whole company. They just closed and they never sent a notice to the people they never say anything.” Read the entire article

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FIVE WAYS TO AVOID THIS SITUATION!

1. When such a transaction takes place, produce via a professional source a very thorough and concise press release explaining the deal.
2. If facts and/or dates are confusing, put together a precise timeline of events with bullets representing each step.
3. Make sure your facts are consistent and delivered by a spokesperson who is preferably an officer of the company.
4. Do not “dodge” questions. Answer them in a very clear and concise manner. If there are matters you choose not to discuss, have an answer ready such as “we are not prepared to discuss that matter at this time”.  Then offer to get back to the reporter eventually with a proper answer.
5. Once negative items are revealed in the press, or accusations made by others, answer these with ONE clear statement stating your position and the facts.
6. Do NOT get into a “match” with the accusers, constantly going back and forth making claims and denials.  One dignified statement should suffice.  After that if it truly becomes an issue of libel or slander, it is time to speak with your legal counsel. 

READ THE WHOLE STORY HERE

In an attempt to make a big debut for their “contemporized” logo and brand redesign initiative, KFC hired leading event company Synergy to build (I kid you not) an “87,500 Square-Foot Contemporized Colonel Sanders Logo in [the] Area 51 Desert…”

I was hoping it was a hoax and a retouched photo, but a KFC Press Release claims it took 3000 hours over 24 days to build and 6 days to erect the logo, which consisted of 65,000 1″x1″ painted tiles. While their mundane competitors continued to unimaginatively market their food products to earthlings with both money and mouths, KFC claimed victory in the solitary race to create the “World’s First Brand Visible from Space.” Hmmm… hard to believe others overlooked that important priority.

The marketing & franchise parody website FRANWORST announced that after this unsuccessful and embarrassing failure, KFC boldly saved their own promotional day with a quick collaboration with marketing innovator EnviroAd, and created the first advertisement to be projected onto the moon. READ THE FRANWORST PARODY HERE.

And be forewarned: Ideas this poorly conceived and implemented are subject to enthusiastic ridicule in the Blogosphere.

[PICTURED RIGHT: Supposed photo of KFC's "Ad on the Moon" Courtesy of FranWorst.]