Category: Strategies&Tactics

KFC’s Double Down A marketing success

Post author By yuanyuanhuang
Post date December 1, 2010
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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’

Marketing Strategies&Tactics

Goodbye Bush, says Veet in cheeky ad

Post author By yuanyuanhuang
Post date November 26, 2010
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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/

Human Resource Management Strategies&Tactics

Bad tactics? Bad strategies?

Post author By yuanyuanhuang
Post date November 19, 2010
No Comments on Bad tactics? Bad strategies?

Jaguar-Land Rover, which is now owned by Indian company Tata Motors, is trying to capitalize on the emerging automobile markets such as China. However, it faces a human resource management problem——the company is having trouble to move its talented managers and their team to China to facilitate the achievement of the company’s objective in Chinese market expansion.

Jaguar’s human resources director Des Thurlby tries to pursuade the managers to work abroad by telling the link the job oversea to future reward and recognition——failing to move overseas would not rule a candidate out of a board position, but promotion was far more likely if an employee had worked overseas. Though the strategy itself follows positive organisational culture that motivates by rewarding and takes care of workers’ personal growth, they are still reluctant to move out. If it does not work within the time allowed, I believe it would be wise for him to either improve the tactics to the strategy (for example, giving them tangible short-term “well-specified” reward and recognition if this is more likely to be attractive), or change another strategy (perhaps it’s more feasible to hire local managers).

References:
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/71593,business,jaguar-staff-told-to-move-to-china-or-risk-promotion
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/8134971/Jaguar-tells-managers-relocate-to-China-or-risk-promotion.html

Strategies&Tactics

SWOT analysis on producing and selling “green cars” to China

Post author By yuanyuanhuang
Post date September 29, 2010
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Reference source:
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90778/90860/6962327.html
Diagram source:
http://money.163.com
In April, Beijing Auto Expo opened with the theme of “Imagining the Green Future”, and sent a signal of potential trend of car manufacturing in Chinese market. Here are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that green auto manufacturers should consider before entering Chinese market.

Strengths:
The labour and raw materials costs are low. If manufacturing plants and selling places are both in China, considerable transportation cost can be saved.
Expanding to a new market can increase businesses’ risk-bearing ability.

Weaknesses:
Companies outside China have limited information and knowledge about the industry.
Marketing and R&D costs can be high; and most of them will be irrecoverable sunk costs.

Opportunities:
China is the world’s largest auto market. People’s demand for cars is predicted to have a sustained and fast growth as their income (affordability) increases every year.
Chinese government provides financial incentives to encourage new-energy car manufacturers. Sales volume and growth rate of automobiles in China
Chinese Oil price is high so cars with less oil consumption are desirable.
Chinese green car market is not saturated.

Threats:
Future uncertainty in Chinese government policies and fluctuation of exchange rate may exist.
Future cost of labour and price of raw materials may rise because of inflation.

Marketing Strategies&Tactics

KFC’s brand positioning in China

Post author By yuanyuanhuang
Post date September 28, 2010
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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.