Home > food, kfc > Double Down numbers don’t add up

Double Down numbers don’t add up

December 16, 2010

I promised I wouldn’t write about KFC’s Double Down anymore, but I came across an intriguing fact the other day while I was updating past blog entries (I’ll be switching this blog over to just WordsByNowak.com very soon, with SexBombsBurgers.com redirecting there).

You may recall that KFC Canada pulled the Double Down - the infamous chicken sandwich with no bun - in November after its promised month-long limited-time offer. The company said the sandwich was a huge seller, with more than a million Double Downs gobbled up in a month. At the time, I mused about why the chain would pull such a hot item, and that it was obviously a marketing ploy so that it would again receive a heap of media coverage when it inevitably relaunches.

But hold on just a second. If we look back at the reported numbers for the U.S., things look a little fishy… er, chickeny. KFC launched the sandwich in the U.S. in April and after three months sold 10 million, which sounds like a lot to us Canadians but in reality is very little because it breaks down to about 3.3 million per month. In a country with ten times the population and arguably ten times the appetite for fast food, the U.S. should have posted much higher numbers. Indeed, the company labelled the Double Down a flop, with sales being “immaterial.”

So what gives? The Double Down received about the same amount of media attention in the U.S. as it did here. Why was the poor-selling sandwich permanently added to U.S. menus but the hot-selling Canadian counterpart pulled?

Are Canadians really that into bunless chicken sandwiches, or has somebody been fudging the numbers?

Categories: food, kfc
  1. Marc Venot
    December 16, 2010 at 3:19 pm | #1

    “immaterial” is either #Having no matter or substance #Irrelevant, which is here neither. It seems to me the word should be “marginal” because KFC may sell comparatively much more in the USA?
    You could have indicated that south of the border the double down is proposed in two flavours, fried and grilled.
    Now let hope KFC will sell it again but can find a way to reduce the sodium contents.

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