KFC's American Idol stunt

It was only a couple months ago that KFC pulled a publicity stunt by announcing they had asked the Pope to bless their new fish sandwich.

Now they're trying to create buzz again by offering American Idol contestant Sanjaya Malakar a free lifetime supply of (pretty disgusting) KFC Famous Bowls if he dons a bowl hairdo.

KFC President Gregg Dedrick wrote to Sanjaya: “If you don a bowl hairdo during one of your next nationally televised performances, KFC will grant you a free lifetime supply of KFC Famous Bowls. We’re sure America will be as ‘bowled-over’ by your take on this classic look as they are by our KFC Famous Bowls.”

Good grief!

from TV Envy

Taco Bell test markets breakfast menu

Thanks to a tip from Nancy's Fast Food Maven blog on Myspace, I've been reading about Taco Bell's test-marketing of a breakfast menu.

Taco Bells in the Toledo, Fresno, Tucson and Omaha markets started serving breakfast Saturday.

There are eight items on Taco Bell's new breakfast menu including a guacamole bacon grilled burrito, a sausage and bacon grilled burrito, a bacon and egg taco, Cinnamon Toastadas, and Bell breakfast potatoes.

"You can get a bagel or croissant and egg sandwich anywhere - our menu is unique and differentiated," said Toledo franchisee Don Unruh. "We got Grilled Stuft Burritos, breakfast Crunchwraps and Cinnamon Toastadas."

The menu will be offered from 6 AM to 10:30 AM.

from: Fast Food Maven, BG News, and KETV.

Fast Food Maps

A new website called Fast Food Maps is an intriguing use of Google Maps to plot the location of major fast food restaurants in the US.

The site displays locations for 10 popular chains: McDonald's (with 13,642 locations shown), Burger King, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Wendy's, KFC, Jack in the Box, Hardee's, Carl's Jr., and In-N-Out Burger.

The site is navigated by selecting a state and then city in the upper-right corner of the screen. You can then navigate the map using the standard Google Maps controls (dragging the map and zooming in and out). The 'screen stats' at the lower right show the restaurant totals for the area shown on the map screen. Here's the map, locations and stats for Fort Worth, Texas (my home).

There's also a static US map that shows the density of all or selected restaurant chains across the entire US.