KFC is giving away more bottles of its 'putrid' new creation

KFC

KFC is giving away 3,000 more bottles of fried-chicken scented sunscreen.

On Monday, the chicken chain first gave away 3,000 free bottles of Col. Sanders' Extra Crispy Sunscreen and according to the company, the bottles were all claimed within three hours.

As a result, KFC decided to give away another batch of the sunscreen at ExtraCrispySunscreen.com. On Friday, the company will again be giving away the sunscreen on a first-come, first-serve basis while supplies last. There's a limit of one bottle per household.

"Suntan lotion always smells like lotion," KFC CMO Kevin Hochman told Business Insider last week. "So we thought - why not make it smell like fried chicken?"

KFC is following up the sunscreen stunt with a new sponsored Snapchat filter, which will be available this Saturday. The filter is Colonel Sanders themed, allowing users to morph their faces into a version of the Colonel, complete with glasses, bowtie, goatee, and age spots.

KFC

KFC's new Snapchat filter

The Snapchat filter and the sunscreen come on the heels of the June launch of an ad campaign starring George Hamilton as the "Extra Crispy Colonel," promoting the chain's Extra Crispy Chicken.

According to Hochman, response to the Extra Crispy Colonel's ads "blew away [KFC's] expectations," prompting the company to look into new ways to extend the summer campaign. Then, someone suggested KFC sunscreen.

In addition to trying to evoke childhood memories of KFC's distinctive scent, the chicken chain is taking notes from international marketing campaigns.

In May, KFC debuted edible nail polish in Hong Kong, as a play on the chain's "finger lickin' good" slogan. The promotion quickly went viral, providing an example of the marketing power that the limited run of a weird product mashup can have in the connected world of social media.

The fried-chicken sunscreen went similarly viral. KFC's original tweet about the product has been retweeted more than 2,000 times, and the sunscreen has been featured in articles at publications including Business Insider, Fortune, USA Today, and even The Weather Channel.

But the real question is, how does the sunscreen actually smell?

KFC

KFC Col. Sanders' Extra Crispy Sunscreen

Sniff-testers described the sunscreen as smelling like everything from maple syrup, to savory spices, to Milk Bar's cereal milk. One person said it smelled just as intended - like fried chicken's crispy outer coating. Others had less positive things to say.

"I hate you, KFC. I hate you, Col. Sanders. And, I hate you, Uppercut Marketing of Addison, Texas, for creating this promotional campaign," James Grebey wrote in his Insider review of what he calls the 'putrid' sunscreen. "I now associate the smell of Kentucky Fried Chicken with an inedible gloopy paste that I once put on my face in the name of #content, rather than food."

In May 2015, KFC kicked off a new era in marketing with the reintroduction of Colonel Sanders. Since then, the brand has debuted a number of variations on the Colonel, a "Re-Colonelization" program, and new menu items including a take on the regional classic, Nashville Hot Chicken. Now, the brand has a sunscreen.

This may not be the end of KFC's venture into creating mashups between fried chicken and everyday products. While Hochman says the chicken chain is "probably not" going to release an entire line of male grooming products, he hints the chicken chain may be releasing similar products in the future.

"Why wouldn't you want to smell like fried chicken?" he asks.