KFC found authenticity ‘accidentally’ with HCG campaign that connected with consumers
The most successful brands are those with real founders who give the business a human connection with consumers, the head of marketing for YUM Brands has said.
Nikki Lawson told the Mumbrella/Getty Images seminar on Brand Authenticity YUM – owners of KFC and Pizza Hut – had run a global gathering of marketing leaders to investigate the direction for their brands, looking deeply into what made made them relevant to consumers and what purpose the brands had.
And she also warned that brands needed to be clear about what they were trying to say to the community, citing Coles as an example of a brand saying one thing with its support for Australian business through its marketing and another with who it was dealing with some suppliers.
She said that brands needed to behave in a way that consumers expected.
“I still can’t work out are they for Australia or against Ausrtralia,” said Lawson on Coles.
She admitted that people had little love for actual brands, and therefore it was their experience that created the essence of the brand.
“How do you go back and truly understand what makes you authentically you,” said Lawson.
“In people heavy organisations if its not authentically you, you are going to struggle.”
She said that KFC had conducted extensive research to find the essence of its brand.
“The successful brands are brands with real founders. You have to do it in a way that is true to who you are.”
She said that the journey for KFC, founded by Colonel Harland Sanders in the 1930s, found it performed best in the minds of consumers by not copying other brands and setting itself up as being different.
“We are successful when we respond to consumer needs in a way that is original.”
Despite all the research and development, she admitted that KFC had found a level of authenticity with consumers accidentally last year when it started running a campaign that moved away from celebrity cricketers and capitalised on the sponsorship of the Big Bash cricket series.
Rather than focusing on the stadiums and stars of the sport KFC developed the line of the “HCG” or Home Cricket Ground that showed that every Australian home was a centre of the cricketing world.
“We felt like our position in cricket had an authenticity to it,” she said.
Simon Canning
“We are successful when we respond to consumer needs in a way that is original.”
That is all.
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“The most successful brands are those with real founders who give the business a human connection with consumers”.
Not so sure this is the only way in to being a successful brand. Coke, Samsung and Mercedes seem to be doing pretty well without an overtly present founder. Accidentally authentic seems like an oxymoron too.
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Wonder if she prefers Zinger or Original Recipe?
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Yes, I’ve read ‘Emotional Branding’ by Marc Gobé too.
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Is KFC ‘for Australia’?
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when marketers people start talking about their brand having a purpose,
you know they’re fair and square in adland.
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