Kentucky Fried Chicken is one of most successful fast food related restaurant in the world. The restaurant was founded in 1930, and its headquarters is located in Louisville, in the region known as Kentucky in the U.S. The KFC runs a chain of fast food restaurants around the globe. It usually specializes in the provision of the fried chicken to its target customers. The KFC has successfully employed branding strategy to its advantage over the years.
KFC as a fast food chain restaurant, employs a branding strategy that aims at portraying its fried chicken as the best in the world. The strategy employed by the company is the one that tries to focus on emotionally appealing to the target clients, ensuring that functional levels are organized in a manner that contributes to adding value to the customers (Restaurants and Energy 2010). The following chart summarizes the branding strategy of KFC and what its tries to portray;
Chart 1: showing the branding strategy development in the KFC
According to the chart 1 above, the KFC’s branding strategy tries to portray the restaurant as a business institution, which focuses on continually providing food services that are of high quality, quality products as well as unique customer care services. Therefore, it portrays the restaurant as a place where every client can get world class services; thus, leading to high levels of satisfaction (Restaurants and Energy 2010). What is portrayed by the KFC branding strategy has played an instrumental role in the long term success of the organization, particularly in selling its core food product, which is fried chicken in all its restaurant chains around the globe. The branding has aided in building customer loyalty and confidence that has assisted the firm in achieving tremendous growth in all its operations around the world (Cox, Chicksand and Yang 2007).
KFC shows its branding strategy in several ways. First, it shows the brand through marketing campaigns, such as advertising, social media campaigns, whereby, the main message is contained in its branding vision. The message tries to convince clients that the services and products offered by the restaurant are the best (Keller, Parameswaran and Jacob 2011). Consequently, this plays an instrumental role in creating awareness of the branding strategy of the restaurant. Second, the way the restaurant offers its services and products to customers aid it in showing its branding strategy. The restaurant employees ensure that they offer high quality and unique customer services to client around the world, and products are of the right quality leading to its long term success. The offering of the services help the target clients to understand its branding strategy, as they get to experience on first-hand basis.
The KFC also makes use of logos in showing its branding to the target customers. The logos are used in communicating a message to the client of how the restaurant offers good services and products to them. The following chart shows a logo of KFC;
Chart 2: KFC logo
In this case, the logo shown in chart 2 shows that KFC is a brand that is good for the client. Therefore, the logo portrays KFC as a good brand that is committed to making the customers happy and satisfied with the products and services they receive in any of its fast food outlets around the globe. Additionally, KFC also make use of ‘finger licking good’ as it branding strategy. The slogan is aimed at showing the clients how its fried chickens are tasty and of how standards, leading to a customer satisfied and wanting more. The KFC uses the slogan in trying to create a picture in the eyes of clients that when they visit its outlets and purchase a product they will not disappointed and they will want to come for more in the future (George and Anandkumar 2015). The slogan is a strong branding tool that is used by the restaurant in trying to attain its marketing goals.
Based on chart 1, it is evident that the branding of the KFC is targeted at two groups of customers. First, it targets middle class income earning customers, as they have the financial muscles needed to buy their high quality products, but priced at relatively high prices that low income individuals cannot afford. The second group of customers targeted by the branding efforts of the restaurant is the upper class individuals. The upper class individuals have money and usually look for high quality services; therefore, the restaurant tries to use its branding to show these potential clients that it has fast food products and services they may be seeking in the markets around the globe (Keller, Parameswaran and Jacob 2011).
The brands of the restaurant are created and developed by the product development unit in collaboration with the marketing team. The teams try to develop brands that will appeal emotionally to the clients. They also ensure that they develop high quality products that create value for clients by ensuring that they get value for their money and time that they take to purchase the restaurant brands, such as the fried chicken. The main role of the marketing department is to develop the branding strategy aimed at creating brand awareness among the target clients.
The marketing team of the restaurant has to come up with creative messages that portray a true picture of the services and products offered to the target clients. The message has to be appealing to the target customers. Therefore, the marketing team creates a branding strategy that aims at giving the restaurant a competitive edge in the market (Keller, Parameswaran and Jacob 2011). Thus, the marketing team and product development unit have a critical role to play in the branding of the restaurant. Failure of one of the units can result in the entire brand of KFC failing. Hence, they have to work in collaboration to create and develop brands that add value to the target clients and at the same time improve the image of the firm.
A close look at KFC branding reveals that it has never changed its branding. The restaurant has offered the same brands since 1930. It has shown consistency, which has been crucial for its long term success. It has enjoyed success mainly because of offering consistent brands in terms of quality and customer care services. As a result, it has managed to create customer loyalty among many target customers around the world, giving it a competitive edge over its main rivals. The firm does not have any plans in place to alter its branding as it plans to enhance its consistency of offering high quality fried chicken, as it expand its operations around the globe.
References List
Cox, A., Chicksand, D. and Yang, T., 2007. The proactive alignment of sourcing with marketing and branding strategies: a food service case. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 12(5), pp.321-333.
George, J. and Anandkumar, V., 2015. Branding in China: Lessons from the Foreign Brand Success and Failure Stories. Available at SSRN 2695066.
Keller, K.L., Parameswaran, M.G. and Jacob, I., 2011. Strategic brand management: Building, measuring, and managing brand equity. Pearson Education India.
Restaurants, K.K.F.C. and Energy, B.B.P., 2010. 88 Nation Branding: Concepts, Issues, Practice. Nation Branding, p.87.
