Category: Marketing

In April 12th, KFC launched a sensational addition to its menu——The double down. In Canada, the sandwich quickly became KFC’s best-selling new menu item ever, quickly selling over 350,000 sandwiches in less than 10 days.

While McDonalds is selling healthy salads in their fastfood restaurants, KFC is positioning itself as a real fastfood brand. KFC attracts chicken lovers with the meatiest sandwich creation ever——two 100 percent all white meat fried chicken filets topped with cheese, bacon and the Colonel’s Sauce. Unlike the traditional fastfood, it has a unique selling point as its TV commercial describes:”so much 100-per-cent premium chicken, we didn’t have room for a bun.”

Is it ethical? You will probably say no without thinking. But here’s an interesting phenomenon that totally challenges our knowledge learnt in class. “You create something that’s almost illegal and then there’s more demand for it.” Richard Michon, a marketing professor at Ryerson. Besides the product’s points of difference and innovative features we can perceive, Double Down’s negative publicity is also a major cause of the marketing success. People talk about it and make funny videos online; nutritionists cry and newspapers make criticism…Everything is actually following KFC’s “360 degree” marketing strategy——capitalizing social media for free.

Reference:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/health/852740/new-burger-has-fried-chicken-bun
http://www.thestar.com/article/882437–kfc-s-double-down-sets-canadian-sales-record
http://www.kfc.com/promos/commercial_doubledown.asp’http://www.kfc.com/promos/commercial_doubledown.asp’

Some quick facts before you read the post:
Veet is a hair removal product for woman.
Bush is a slang word for hair.
“Goodbye Bush” was an interesting ad of Veet just after Obama took over Bush’s position of the US president. This short ad informed customers what its products do and capitalized the hottest political issue at the same time. The ad commented on the fact that Obama would be taking over power after George Bush, and demonstrated “Yes ladies, our product will remove your unwanted hair.”As Brand Strategy magazine said, “We love this ad we got sent, which comes from Veet.” This creative ad was a huge marketing success. It went viral. The minute this ad went out, scans of it started to be spread widely around the internet. This ad was really cheeky but people loved it so they shared it. It’s easy to get into people’s mind even for a long period of time. How many times do you read a dirty slang term in newspaper? When I look for a hair removal product, my mind would probably jump to Veet. That’s a brand recognition due to its fantastic marketing.
Reference:
http://brandstrategy.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/goodbye-bush-says-veet-in-cheeky-ad/

Reference source:
http://resources.alibaba.com/topic/531563/KFC_s_localization_strategy_in_China_.htm

KFC is the most popular fast food restaurant in China, though it only ranks 7th in the US market where it comes from. I think a major reason of the success is its great brand positioning. It leveraged points of parity and difference at the same time.

KFC recognized itself as a fast food restaurant, when it first entered Chinese market 23 years ago and people had no idea what the westerners’ fast food. Knowing that Chinese people love to eat chicken, KFC introduced its products by creating an image of “The US Fried Chicken Expert” in customers’ mind. Using “chicken” as the frame of reference to attract customers, it also emphasized on its unique US-flavor taste.

As more competitors like McDonalds entered fast food market in China, KFC speeded up research and development and come up with attractive new products continously to reinforce its market leader position. It became the first fast food restaurant with an idea of product localisation, as its advertisement shows——”We produce fast food that caters to Chinese taste”. KFC involves more Chinese ingredients and recipes into new products successfully; and most of them were still designed based on what KFC was famous for——fried chicken.