KFC Turnaround Strategy New management today is incredibly deliberate about making the KFC brand relevant again. There’s two big ways for doing that, in the context of this industry: and that is through bold marketing activations and bold menu innovation. It’s all about making the brand and the product really relevant to emerging and quickly changing consumer taste. They will do this in a way that’s grounded in how the brand is currently positioned, yet it has to be dynamic enough to push out those boundaries. The new assigned CMO is finding ways to take what’s iconic about the brand to where their customers are to show up in unexpected way that ultimately make those experiences better for them. Looking out for trends and trying to be there in the moment when those trends are happening, willing to go outside of what is comfortable. You need to research trends and insert your brand into them. To be relevant is much harder, and it starts with really knowing who you are, as a brand. KFC began working in 2014 and that was really the start of the turnaround. Spent months going through the archives and to realize that when KFC had been at their best as a brand, it was led by the heartbeat of our brand, Colonel Sanders. The new assigned CMO also chose to put all those evocative, iconic signifiers – the Red & White Bucket, the Colonel tie – back into the front and center of the brand. Once re-grounded on who the brand was, they looked for new ways to show up and express that. KFC wants to create experiences that people want to be a part of that elevate what people are already doing. Also like to find micro-cultures and experiment around how we can embed into them. Fundamentally, you want to be a brand that people want to be a part of. It’s that simple. You don’t want to be slapping your logo onto things; you want to create experiences that people want to get involved with. For example, if KFC was concerned with staying conventional, they could hire a few Instagram influencers and get them eating and talking about KFC. And that would be just fine. Instead, they looked at the trend for Influencers and asked how to embed the brand in that trend in a way that would invite people in. So, KFC used Colonel into a virtual influencer and he struck a chord with the public. People really began to follow him, and engage with him, to such an extent that, ultimately, we were paid by brands like Dr Pepper, Casper, and Old Spice to promote their products. In the end, a quarter of KFC media spend on this Page 2 of 3 campaign was paid for by other brands. And the virtual Colonel was out there influencing on behalf of other brands. You don’t get any more relevant than when other brands are paying you to make their brands relevant. Fast food customers have a lot of choice and are not very loyal, so spending a lot of time building an innovation program that is highly craveable to customers, so that they want to come to the brand. There was a time that the KFC brand risked becoming irrelevant, so committing to becoming a brand that is relevant across generations was the only option. Reconnected with heritage to understand what of core anchors emotionally to customers, and then looked at how we could innovate and push boundaries to drive our relevance and deliver this kind of growth. Menu innovation needs to be exciting and really make people want to come to KFC to try it. Yet, KFC experience and pricelists must stay affordable for the relevant target market KFC chooses to do business with. The appearance of this menu innovation program was Chicken & Waffle that launched in the fall. Waffles are a huge food trend, that most people have heard of but haven’t tried, either because they couldn’t find it or they couldn’t afford it. By bringing in a delicious waffle that could serve hot at over 4,000 restaurants around the country, at a price point that people could afford, that allowed them to be a part of this huge food trend. It’s delivered through a product that is at the core of our business, our world-famous fried chicken, so we can do it in a way that’s grounded in who we are – but pushes into a trend that’s happening out in the world

. Questions: 1. Considering the above mentioned in the case, please explain KFC competitive strategy for growing the business and how it is reflecting on their new brand Positioning strategy and how it may apply on their marketing offering with all its 3 key components. 2. Please explain your view in detail for KFC brand communication mix as mentioned above in the case and how it may/may not serve their strategy turnaround attempt and what do you think they should do further if any to achieve their strategic goals