Someone needs to have a long discussion with the public affairs and marketing departments at KFC.

Peter West, who has a great blog about Public Relations, was commenting on the way KFC responded to PETA's enlisting of Pamela Anderson to speak against their factory farming practices. Spurred by that discussion, I decided to do a quick look on Google and through the blogosphere to see what's what. Sadly, it seems KFCs problems are far greater than a CEO choosing to engage a celebraty in debate.

Take a look at the KFC website's section on the welfare of animals. Listed here are the bios of their advisory council and a few bullet points to highlight their progress and goals. Details are vague and the only links offered are to the front page of two of their suppliers. The press release section has not been updated in over a year. The

Now visit PETA's website for their campaign against KFC. Their objections are well outlined. Their alternatives are equally well presented. A timeline, complete with copies of emails, letters and press releases provides a well documented history of the organization's issues.

For someone, such as myself, who's just idley wandered across this issue, the PETA site comes across as if they're playing straight with me and laying all that they've got out for me to examine and decide for myself. KFC comes across as trying to hide something. That impression isn't helped by two of the more prominant experts on KFC's animal wlfare committee resigning after being asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement preventing them from discussing publicly about KFC's animal welfare policies.

KFC is dealing with this from a traditional media point of view. Don't acknowledge the problem, or if you do, minimize the significance. Try to deflect the issue or discredit your critics. Offer up a group of experts who are working on the problem and remark that "progress is being made" - but don't get into any specifics, timelines or anything else that will bollocks things up for you three months from now when you need to hold another press conference to announce that your experts are working on the problem and that 'progress is being made'.

This used to work. People's memories are short, and provided the company could lay low enough the story wouldn't be carried on to the next news cycle.

But the long memory of the internet is changing that. It's keeping this story alive beyond the traditional news cycles. Do a search for Kentucky Fried Chicken on Google and the PETA protest site will be the second to appear. Sift through blogs and discussion groups and you will find this issue arising again and again. I'm talking about it. Sooner or later you'll probably have a few words to say on the issue. And the story will just keep growing, and growing, despite the KFC's executive's pretending to the contrary.

Someone needs to have a long discussion with the public affairs and marketing departments at KFC.