KFC 11 Herbs and Spices

Submission 10,232

Part of a series on Foodom. [View Related Entries]

Overview

KFC 11 Herbs and Spices Tweet refers to a viral tweet based on the discovery that the fast food restaurant KFC's Twitter account only follows 11 people, five spice girls and six people named Herb, a joke about the company's secret recipe for fried chicken. When it was discovered that the person who found the Twitter easter egg worked for a public relations firmed, some online questioned the validity of the discovery.

Background

On October 19th, 2017, Twitter^[1] user @edgette22 tweeted ".@KFC follows 11 people. Those 11 people? 5 Spice Girls and 6 guys named Herb. 11 Herbs & Spices. I need time to process this." This is an easter egg reference to the company's infamous secret reciepe for fried chicken, which is comprised of 11 herbs and spices. @edgette's tweet (shown below) received more than 322,000 retweets and 715,000 likes in less than three weeks.

Developments

Response

Following the viral popularity of the tweet, some online wondered what KFC's response to the tweet would be, including @edgette22.^[2] The following day, he tweeted, "Waiting for @KFC to respond like" and a gif from the television show Community. The company responded, "You said you needed time. We're just giving you space. DM us when you're ready."

Several weeks later, on November 4th, @edgette posted^[3] that the company had sent him a painting of him getting a piggyback ride from Col. Sanders, the company mascot. He tweeted a photo of the painting with the caption, "Dreams DO come true. #GiddyUpColonel Thanks @kfc." The post (shown below, left) received more than400 retweets and 1,100 likes. In addition, Col. Sanders endorsed @edgette22 on LinkedIn (shown below, right). He tweeted,^[4] "Weirdest part of this whole thing is the @kfc Colonel adding me to @LinkedIn & endorsing me for social networking. Didn't see that coming."

Conspiracy Theory

On November 7th, Redditor ^[5] Czarvana posted the image of the painting in the /r/pics subreddit. The post received more than 121,000 points (77% upvoted) and 3,500 comments in two days.

In the thread about the painting, Redditor^[6] your_fish_monger wrote that the person who discovered it works for the person who discovered the easter egg works for a PR firm and has " the past few months is a bunch of posts about Yum Brands' two main stores, KFC and Taco Bell."

However, The Daily Dot^[7] reports that TallGrass is not "directly affiliated with KFC or Yum! Brands." The campagin was orchestrated by a separate firm, Wieden+Kennedy. As the outlet points out, the firm commented on the easter egg in an interview with ADWEEK^[8] on October 20th.

"We planted this on Twitter over a month ago," said Freddie Powell, creative director at Wieden+Kennedy. "Frankly, we weren’t sure if anybody was going to find it. Sometimes you just have to put stuff out into the universe and cross your fingers that the internet will work its magic."

Since the reveal, @edgette22 has denied working with KFC or Wieden+Kennedy on Twitter. On November 7th, he tweeted^[9] (shown below, left) a link to the Reddit thread with the caption "Huh. So apparently I'm an undercover spy that works for @kfc and/or @WiedenKennedy. Weird. I feel like I would know that. But I guess the Internet is smarter than me."

However, @edgette22 was not actually the first to discover the easter egg. On September 19th, Twitter^[10] user @Chazrap tweeted (shown below, center), "It looks like @kfc is following 11 people named Herb and Spice Girls. Relieved their unfollowing of me last week wasn't personal/political."

The following month, on October 15th, Twitter user @laurelbartlettt tweeted, "KFC follows 11 people.. 5 of them are members of the spice girls and 6 of them are guys named Herb." The post (shown below, right) received more than 370 retweets and 850 likes.

Chaz Kengas Prize Package

On September 19th, Twitter^[10] user @Chazrap (real name: Chaz Kangas) tweeted (shown below, center), "It looks like @kfc is following 11 people named Herb and Spice Girls. Relieved their unfollowing of me last week wasn't personal/political." The tweet was the first to actually discover the easter egg on KFC's Twitter account.

However, because Kangas's was overlooked by the other, more viral tweet, the company did not reward Kangas as quickly.

On March 2nd, 2018, Kangas hosted an unboxing video to show the care package he received from KFC.^[12] The gifts included KFC merchandise, Colonel Sanders comic books, a copy of the video game WWE 2K18, in which Col. Sanders is a playable character, as well as a photoshopped photograph of Kangas meeting Col. Sanders (shown below).