As KFC gears up for a major rebranding initiative with the launch of “grilled” chicken next year, some competitors are taking aim at the segment leader and questioning its plan while others say their marketing efforts will continue to stress core brand values.
El Pollo Loco, in its recently launched “May I Fool You?” ad campaign, emphasizes its flame-grilling tradition while satirizing what the chain’s marketing officials characterize as rivals’ increasing trend to tout health and quality. The TV campaign, launched in late February, also warns consumers away from “greasy fried chicken” and over-reliance on zero-trans-fat claims.
Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits, in a campaign called “Bonafide” that broke March 31, takes on KFC head-to-head in the bone-in, fried-chicken segment.
Church’s Chicken, meanwhile, plans to continue positioning itself as the provider of lower-price, authentic fried chicken to multi-cultural, urban audiences.
Wing Zone, which specializes in jumbo Buffalo wings, said it has no plans to deviate from marketing efforts that emphasize product quality and variety.
Executives of those chains say KFC’s rebranding into a “Kentucky Fried & Grilled Chicken” concept may be just what the chain needs to improve sales, but it won’t be easy.
“People are not leaving fried chicken to eat grilled chicken,” said Dick Lynch, chief marketing officer for 1,905-unit Popeyes, based in Atlanta.
Although having a nonfried product is “not unimportant,” he said, Popeyes and KFC compete on a longstanding point of similarity: “We’re both fried-chicken brands,” Lynch said.
That’s why Popeyes’ new campaign “looks down the barrel of KFC’s gun,” he said, by focusing on the “culinary distinctiveness and quality” of Popeyes’ fried chicken and urging consumers to “change your chicken…get Bonafide.”
Bonafide refers not only to Popeyes’ chicken but also to the chain’s customers, whom Lynch called passionate, “mad truth-speakers,” one of the definitions
As part of the campaign, Popeyes launched an online contest in which consumers can submit videos describing what makes them Bonafide.
KFC has failed repeatedly in trying to market a nonfried product, and though the chain bills its new product as “grilled,” it’s actually roasted in an oven that uses a grill plate for striping the chicken. KFC contends the product is more healthful than its fried chicken.
But El Pollo Loco, which has about 400 units, is well-positioned in its current campaign to educate consumers about the health benefits of authentic flame-grilled chicken, said Steve Carley, president and chief executive of the Costa Mesa, Calif.-based chain.
An initial TV spot in the campaign depicts a mom and her kids ordering at the “Greasy Fried Chicken” chain. The order taker asks if he can fool them into thinking they’re getting a healthful meal by slapping a zero-grams-trans-fat label on the product. The tag is: “You can’t fake healthy.”
Carley acknowledged that KFC is targeting consumers looking for healthful food alternatives, but that poses a marketing problem for KFC, he contended.
“The challenge is to tout health benefits without injuring their core menu item,” he said. “[When] trying to do a couple of different things at the same time, you run the risk of doing neither well.”
Meanwhile, El Pollo Loco’s campaign helps make consumers more discerning about authentic grilled chicken and allows them to “ask the right questions” before choosing a restaurant’s chicken product, Carley said.
KFC “may get some trial” with its nonfried product, but Church’s Chicken doesn’t view it as a competitive threat, said Farnaz Wallace, chief marketing officer for the 1,600-unit chain.
Atlanta-based Church’s targets lower-income, multicultural city dwellers who want fried chicken that tastes as if they made it at home, Wallace said, but KFC’s nonfried product would appeal to health-conscious suburbanites.
“We’re almost a complete opposite of each other,” she said.
It makes strategic sense for KFC to offer the product if they want to be the “chicken expert,” Wallace said, but KFC shouldn’t expect a quick return on the capital investment involved in outfitting restaurants with new roasting ovens.
Franchisees will want to see sales increases within a year, she said, but they can expect to wait as long as five years before the nonfried product catches on with consumers.
Although KFC is poised to make a big push for its nonfried product, that doesn’t mean it will drop fried chicken from its marketing efforts, said Matt Friedman, chief executive and co-founder of 102-unit Wing Zone, based in Atlanta.
“They’ll have a new focus on fried chicken in three or four or five years,” he said.
Fried chicken made the brand what it is, he said, and when any brand sheds the image that’s sustained it for years, “now you’re changing who you are.”
Wing Zone has no plans to rebrand or change its marketing focus, Friedman said.
The chain sells jumbo-size wings and 25 proprietary flavors, and unlike KFC and other chains, it has a successful delivery business. More than half of sales are from delivery to homes and offices, Friedman said.
“That’s the business we’re in, and that’s what our focus is on,” he said.
Wing Zone is in a better position than KFC, Friedman added, because the Buffalo wing segment of the chicken category “continues to gain popularity.”
KFC continues to struggle to increase sales, however, and “maybe for KFC [rebranding] is the right thing to do,” he said.