As KFC drops its “Finger Lickin’ Good” slogan, CODE’s Adam Hyman asks what else restaurants are going to tell us not to do now .
August is always a slow month, but this year it seems ever so bizarre. I feel as though we’re in limbo, waiting for September to bring back some normality – hoping for schools to return and office workers to get back in the groove of things. But we’ve reached a new level of madness this week, which is quite an achievement after the past few weeks of the exam saga, the continuing quarantine craziness and Boris Johnson’s attempt to dress more like Dominic Cummings while on holiday.
KFC have decided that their “Finger Lickin’ Good” slogan is no longer appropriate in this COVID-era. The marketing executives – and no doubt prompted by their in-house legal team at the fast food chain – no longer want the Colonel to encourage people to eat with their hands. Pass the cutlery please honey, I need to tuck into my family bucket.
I want to channel my inner John McEnroe. You cannot be serious! Are we now living in a world where restaurants cannot use iconic, catchy tag lines because people might lick their fingers and possibly catch a virus?
I’ll never forget the late AA Gill commenting that a burger should only be eaten with your hands. Will I now get scolded for eating my Bleecker with my bare hands? Does this now mean I should be cutting my Homeslice pizza with a knife and fork? Am I meant to try and eat my spicy edamame at ROKA with chopsticks? Perhaps the maitre d’ will scuttle over and tell me to take my elbows off the table as well.
While we learn to navigate the strange world we’re currently living in, food should be seen as a comfort to us that hasn’t changed since pre-lockdown. Many of us haven’t been able to go on a summer holiday this year or board a plane to travel to far flung countries for work, so a warming embrace with a pillowy bao bun I’ve scooped up using my hands or a falafel wrap from the stall near my office eaten at my desk is what I need to keep me sane, my mood perky.
I remember a friend in fashion sending me the news at the end of July that KFC had launched their own lipstick, the Bucket Red No. 11, that tastes like chicken wings. Maybe it’s time for some branded hand sanitizer too? That way, COVID or no COVID, at least we can still be finger lickin’ good.
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