The mind boggles..

[Mr.Gumby]

KFC, reportedly, sent out the following message to customers in Germany:

“Commemoration of Kristallnacht – Treat yourself to more soft cheese and crispy chicken. Now at KFCheese!”

Can't even begin to think what to say...

[Nanohedron]

That's too distasteful not to be Internet troll farm meddling.

[Mr.Gumby]

No genuine, I am afraid. They blame 'a fault in the system'. More likely a dimwit in the marketing department who thought it is some funny German holiday or something like that.

[Nanohedron]

More likely a dimwit in the marketing department who thought it is some funny German holiday or something like that.

That's being kind. But you might be right.

[PB+J]

Also chicken and cheese, not kosher. Just to add insult to injury

[benhall.1]

I see that the company itself blames a "semi-automated marketing tool linked to calendar events".

Even so, words fail me.

[Nanohedron]

Well, there you go. I don't know anything about IT, but at some remove the "automated" in "semi-automated" suggests something hackable, no?

I mean, c'mon. That's two hits in one go. If that's dimwittery, the dimwit should hit the casino.

[bigsciota]

I'd imagine it's not actually hacking, just no one doing any kind of checks to make sure it doesn't happen. There are a lot of these automated email systems, most companies use them. I'm sure everyone here gets promotional emails from businesses constantly. They automate them so that rather than having to type up everything to make it unique, they can create templates and let the program do the work. That's why you'll get emails that have your name in them, happen around your birthday, etc.

They likely have one of these templates set up with different important days/holidays, so customers get emails like "hey it's Christmas, come celebrate with chicken!," "hey it's the first day of spring, come celebrate with chicken!," or whatever. The issue is that some "holidays" you might find marked in a calendar are commemorations like this, not celebrations. Whoever picked the calendar to feed into this automated program didn't do their due diligence.

Companies have run into problems like this before. Things that seem extremely obvious to a person will not get caught by automated systems, and you are setting yourself up for major embarrassment like this if you don't have a human element somewhere in the line.

[benhall.1]

I'd imagine it's not actually hacking, just no one doing any kind of checks to make sure it doesn't happen. There are a lot of these automated email systems, most companies use them. I'm sure everyone here gets promotional emails from businesses constantly. They automate them so that rather than having to type up everything to make it unique, they can create templates and let the program do the work. That's why you'll get emails that have your name in them, happen around your birthday, etc.

They likely have one of these templates set up with different important days/holidays, so customers get emails like "hey it's Christmas, come celebrate with chicken!," "hey it's the first day of spring, come celebrate with chicken!," or whatever. The issue is that some "holidays" you might find marked in a calendar are commemorations like this, not celebrations. Whoever picked the calendar to feed into this automated program didn't do their due diligence.

Companies have run into problems like this before. Things that seem extremely obvious to a person will not get caught by automated systems, and you are setting yourself up for major embarrassment like this if you don't have a human element somewhere in the line.

That seems to be exactly what happened here.

[Steampacket]

I see that the company itself blames a "semi-automated marketing tool linked to calendar events" benhall

Meanwhile in Sweden ...

https://www.euronews.com/2022/10/16/far ... nk-comment

[Nanohedron]

It can be said that up to now this conversation has been about what happens in semi-automated systems, and that the details surrounding certain events are what got this conversation going. I don't think there's any question that contributors to this thread are of a like mind about those details, and letting slip with a certain amount of personal outrage is quite understandable. But given C&F's rules about political/religious content (short version: Don't), one has to tread carefully where facts can lead us to other directions. By those parameters, Steampacket's contribution is an unfortunate misstep, as well as being old news. Not that I don't sympathize, but my sympathies are not germane here; C&F's rules are still intact and in force.

Let us steer back to semi-automated systems, and how their mismanagement can be disastrous. If that topic has been exhausted, then let us make an end.

But let me try: I dunno, guys. Kristallnacht is one thing, but chicken and cheese on top of it? Did a dumb system blindly and randomly hit such a closely-knit two-fer? Given the subject matter, I'm afraid I'm hard-pressed to accept that. If not hacking, then why not malice within? Has either been disproven beyond a doubt, or is all the hemming and hawing just gassy ways of saying they don't know? From the corporate end I'm sensing more speculation than assurance, and I for one would hope for more.

Not so long ago on MSN (where I get my general news, for my sins), a certain article characterized a certain public figure as "smirking" and "simpering" - two words that don't match up behaviorally, you'll notice; they're just uncomplimentary and that's where it ends. But his expression and delivery, right there on vid in the article, were expressly nothing of the kind. So this wording was intended not only as cheerleading for certain persuasions: it targeted those disinclined to do better than a drive-by gloss of their news. Mission accomplished, one supposes, so long as one hears no more than one wants to hear. That article only lasted about a day, so maybe the folks at MSN are paying at least some attention after all. Not that they're the best example of journalistic polish, but such a blatant degree of mischaracterization on so public a site is so rare as to be a surprise, and the first thing that entered my mind was troll-farm meddling. And the intent was political.

[PB+J]

Yes the chicken and cheese thing was pretty clear. Not all jews keep kosher, of course, but combining the grotesquery of "celebrating" kristalnacht with the example of cheesy chicken can't simply be a mistake.

I suppose you could argue that there are really many people in the US who have never met a Jewish person, but this is Germany. I have to think it's deoiberate

[GreenWood]

From what I have read, the company said it did not follow the proper review process. That is to say that access before posting was able to have / should have taken place. Therefore "automated" is an excuse, but it is also possible to say that oversight of the automation was simply neglected.

I searched the phrase used, and it was not the one used here but a german version, slightly more obviously not celebratory . It is a commemorative event in Germany apparently, just not that sort.

If there is a culprit, that is not likely to be raised to attention, and if it were, there would be no way to take a confession as true or investigation as thorough or unbiased. That is said with regard to the possibility of it having been inspired to raise certain sympathies and to tarnish other (say nationalism etc.) , or even to sow discord or confusion to the profit of others.

Ironically, I was looking for screenshots of the actual message, and landed on an image search result of about ten. About three were duplicate from same msm site, four were from relatively unknown sites. All the msm sites clicked through, all the others gave "access denied"... except via US proxy. That is to say EU censorship was at play. All the sites were showing "the proper" (for want of better way of saying it) sympathies, but only well established sites were let through.

[Nanohedron]

I suppose you could argue that there are really many people in the US who have never met a Jewish person ...

I would argue that fewer still would know what Kristallnacht was, such are my fellow Yanks' seeming relationship with world events. Just the other day I mentioned the name "Zelensky" and the other fellow was utterly clueless. Considering the source I was especially taken aback, and had to get him up to speed just so the topic could continue, but as you might imagine, it didn't last long. I would hardly have called the matter an esoteric one, and to be frank, I was disappointed.

From what I have read, the company said it did not follow the proper review process. That is to say that access before posting was able to have / should have taken place. Therefore "automated" is an excuse, but it is also possible to say that oversight of the automation was simply neglected.

Of course, but what preceded the neglect, and from where it came, is my interest. I would like to see people getting to the bottom of that. If it was truly random, then fine; that's what due diligence is for. If not, that doesn't change anything on KFC's end, but the possibility of squelching such sources is available to those who go there.

Internet assaults - and lots of 'em! - are why C&F was forced to install our antispam measures, yet actual humans still vet the applicants that get through, because they're not all legit even so. Even with antispam measures doing the lion's share, we learned early on that there's no way to let the hands-on aspect slide and expect to have a clean house.

[GreenWood]

It would not have been spam though. The program that generates the messages would be relatively standalone, would have access to a database of events, probably an official list but if not from a credible source (say a encyclopedia etc.) and that would either be preloaded in a format it could draw from (in which case someone might just have copy pasted into a list without checking the events) or there is a site somewhere that offers a (possibly unchecked) pre-formatted country/world list.

Then an employee "should" have reviewed each message before it was sent, especially if the source was not an own pre-formatted list which "should" have been reviewed as it was being compiled. Even then though, you would think a message would need a person to push "send" only after reviewing it, simply because miscommunication is a liability even for a business without a reputation to lose.


So you might figure out the loopholes in that, but if it were an outside act it would have to have been by hacking the system. There are reasons I could think of a hack not having been declared also.

My impression is that it was purposeful, but if so by who or to what end I wouldn't guess nor accept any explanation of either.

For a clue , someone might look through previous messages to try to figure out if that was standard format, if only % offers were previously broadcast etc. etc. The company would know, but they aren't likely to give out a different version to already stated.