KFC launches stories about self acceptance as it changes the way consumers see the brand
Just a few wee
ks ago KFC launched its first ever branding campaign starring a duck. The world’s second largest fast food chain has looked back in time to find the future of its marketing. Chief marketing officer Nikki Lawson reveals the journey the brand has taken to connect with a new generation of consumers.
In January, TV viewers were treated to a new style of KFC ad. Not a piece of fried chicken was in sight – indeed the ad starred a superannuated duck riding a skateboard – but the ad reflected a new freedom for the brand that has been granted globally but is being tested locally.
KFC chief marketing officer, Nikki Lawson, said the journey began in the US where KFC’s president realised it was time to shake up what the brand stood for.
“It’s been a wonderful story both locally and internationally and I do think there is a couple of key things that have happened in the brand and some of them are local and international,” Lawson told Mumbrella.
“The starting point came from a really fabulous president who led us globally, who said: ‘Look – the only way we are going to make this KFC brand successful is to truly understand who we are and to be truly proud of that and do that the best way we can’.
“What we have done is say if we are going to compete in this changing marketplace what we need to do is look internally to who we are and absolutely stay true to that.
KFC’s new marketing direction began with a rethink four years ago
Lawson said that globally when marketers were trying to get back to the truth of the brand they often went back to the KFC archives and made the decision to stop listening to negative feedback, and instead, capitalise on the positives.
“(It’s like) you are a fish and people say you don’t run fast enough. If you are a fish then swim even better than ever before and don’t worry about what people say about how you run,” she said.
“That was the space we have got to as a brand probably four years ago. Let’s truly understand who we are, what we are good at.
“You get people saying you are not great for people going on a diet. I’m never going to be the first option for people going on a diet, I’m all about treating people.”
Lawson said the bid to revitalise the brand began with the thought process that “we are going to distance ourselves from who we are” before the mindset changed and the executive team realised “let’s understand who we truly are and what we want to be really proud of and let’s build off that.
She said that people working for KFC had a sense of pride in the brand but that people outside of KFC, even though they loved the food, did not always want to admit it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC6TY44L66E
“At KFC it’s not about being the best, it’s about being your best. When we advertise in that voice as well… we seem to hit the right notes.”
In February last year KFC launched its new brand purpose of celebrating originality to managers before taking it on the road to staff asking them what they thought to be the embodiment of the brand, to which they replied KFC’s original tagline: Finger Lickin’ Good – which dates back to the beginning of the franchise in the 1950s.
“If we could look at Finger Lickin’ Good not just as a taste message but beyond that – there is an old journal of the Colonel’s and on it he wrote, ‘life as I have known it has been finger lickin’ good’. It absolutely can stretch beyond the product to the brand. The beauty is it can be so much more. We said ‘let’s start putting it in our work’ because the minute you force it into your work you kind of force the work to live up to it as well.”
The public began to see the new freedom the brand was allowing itself in KFC’s cricket sponsorship, with Bucket Heads and the idea of the HCG (Home Cricket Ground).
Over that time KFC’s marketing has been allowed to shift from being purely functional to being much more playful.
“It’s a journey we have walked with Ogilvy and they have been fabulous partners with us as we have gone through it. We want work that talks to who we are as a brand as well as who we are as a product,” Lawson said.
Part of the journey was allowing the freedom to experience some dead ends.
Four years ago KFC made the decision that it wanted to connect more effectively as a brand, trying a number of different approaches, including It’s all part of the Goodfication, then, Stop and Smell the Chicken.
“(It was) all trying to elevate it into slightly more campaign point of view that could build on each other. We have to embed certain product messages but the question was how do we make those add up to something much bigger?”
The approach came to a crescendo this year when the brand, still doing a lot of product advertising, decided the time had come to do more.
“If this is genuinely a brand point of view, why don’t we see if we can produce a piece of work that can cement that and say, ‘look, this is how it stands’ and I suppose that is where the recent Plucka commercial came from,” she said.
The first pure branding commercial for KFC in Australia debuted in January, entertaining and confusing consumers in equal measure.
It featured little more than Plucka Duck, an extra from 1980s and 1990s variety show Hey Hey It’s Saturday, skateboarding down a mountain road to the tune of Surfin’ Bird before stopping to admire the sunset ,with the tagline: “Life should always be… Finger lickin’ good.”
“A duck on a skateboard, where did that come from?” she said.
“The philosophy of the brand is: we are in a place where we believe life should be lived and it’s best lived when people are being true to themselves. That was our starting point.
“Plucka is great example of someone who always spoke his mind and was true to himself and mixing that with the fact that music has worked really well for us in our communication over the last two years as we sought to try and improve the stature of our communication and be simpler in terms of how we express things. There was Bird is the Word and it kind of all snowballed from there.”
Lawson admits she had no ideas who Plucka was, but said that a large proportion of KFC’s target audience would also have been oblivious to his existence before the ad.
“It’s just the whole liberating feeling of the commercial you could buy into even if you don’t know who Plucka is.”
The Plucka commercial has been followed by a number of other more product-centric ads, but remaining in the same theme; although Lawson said KFC was working not to allow its ads to become too formulaic – including the story of a tradie who rescues a puppy from a drain and adopts it.
“What we definitely want is a lovely golden thread through our work that builds up to this idea that life is best lived when people are true to themselves,” she said.
“We are a retailer and we still produce 26 ads a year and we will hit-and-miss as we go through. What we hope is we manage to find really fresh ways into it.”
Lawson says the mindset is also being stretched into the sorts of products that KFC is bringing to market and the brand took a bold step last week launching a Zinger Black Burger as a limited edition menu item.
https://youtu.be/lmBznUwfqRE
The burger features a striking black bun and a hot sauce which is aimed at giving customers an adventurous choice.
“I’m hoping it will flow through to the products as well and the communication won’t just be television communication; the work we do on Facebook, the work we do on social media and how digital plays a bigger part into the brand.
https://youtu.be/gm4DgwLIvfM
“If all those touch points can (make us) stronger in terms of telling our story I think we have got a better chance of consumers really understanding who we are.”
Simon Canning
ha haha ha. brilliant. absolute classic.
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