KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN TARGETS TV FOOTBALL FANS

ROSEANNE HARPER

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Kentucky Fried Chicken here targeted the football crowd this month with its Super MegaMeal ad on TV.

The ad shows several people gathered around the television screen apparently watching a game while one person unpacks the components of the meal and a voice-over identifies them. The ad is deliberately not specific to Super Bowl, said Jean Litterst, KFC's manager of public affairs. "The whole month of January is one of football games. There are the play-offs and the College Bowls," she said.

Litterst said the aim of the KFC ad is to reinforce the ideas of "meal" and "quality." The MegaMeal packages, the first of which was launched just before Labor Day, "redefine value," she added. That package, like the currently promoted one, included a choice of a Rotisserie Gold chicken or eight pieces of fried chicken, three large side dishes, four biscuits and a dessert, all for $14.99, plus tax.

In the current package, a chocolate chip pudding cake has replaced the apple pie that was part of the first MegaMeal promotion.

While Litterst stressed that KFC has always offered full meals, the MegaMeal campaign is the company's first effort to promote a family meal package. Such meal packages for four or more people are being increasingly promoted by supermarket deli/food-service departments.