There are few global brands that can communicate without using their name or logo and still be instantly identifiable. KFC were so confident in the iconic status of their 11 secret herbs and spices that they obscured the slogan in a semantic riddle on Twitter and waited to see if anyone would notice. They updated their Twitter account so that they were only following 11 other accounts – six men named Herb plus the five original Spice Girls – then sat and waited. When one Twitter user noticed, the revelation went viral.

Twitter user @edgette22’s post has had nearly 320,000 retweets and more than 700,000 favorites since it was posted, and KFC earned all of their media coverage for
free.