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Shopping Centers Today -> February 2006
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GETTING FRESH
Fast-food chain KFC revisits its ‘fried’ roots with new prototype
By Elyse Umlauf-Garneau
With age taking its toll, Colonel Sanders was in need of more than a touch of Botox. “Old,” “tired” and “unappetizing” were some of the adjectives routinely used to describe Kentucky Fried Chicken units — and this of a restaurant chain that was once at the top of the game.
Competitors made inroads, including carry-out chicken at supermarkets and the offering of more pre-prepared meal choices than ever before. Worse, Kentucky Fried and other restaurants have been hurt by the growth of the sandwich category, says Ron Paul, president and CEO of Technomic, a Chicago-based restaurant and food supplier consulting firm. Think Subway.
In short, Kentucky Fried Chicken’s problems were manifold.
“Advertising was non-brand-building, customers disconnected with the brand, and Kentucky Fried Chicken was constantly having its lunch eaten by all the burger guys who had gotten into the chicken market,” said Paul Lechleiter, chief creative officer and partner of Cincinnati-based FRCH Design Worldwide, charged with designing a physical overhaul of the restaurant.
“KFC was kind of stalled,” said Paul. “Their same-store sales hadn’t been growing, and chicken had been a slower growth category in general.” At the end of 2004, the 11,000-unit chain’s same-store sales were down 2 percent.
But the Colonel was not about to take all this lying back. Last year Kentucky Fried Chicken’s parent, Louisville, Ky.-based Yum Brands, began rolling out a new image and tweaked and expanded the menu in an effort to refeather the nest and attract a new generation of chicken eaters. Yum Brands launched the new FRCH-designed prototype last spring with the introduction of a store in the Louisville area. The plan is to roll about 250 of the new stores out over the next three years.
A significant aspect of the redesign involved looking back to move forward: tapping the restaurant’s history and incorporating those things that elicit positive feeling and a sense of comfort food, while being very much part of the 21st century.
The importance of a modern feel cannot be underestimated, says Paul. “In the case of a fast-food chain rebranding, what’s important is the overall image of what the brand stands for, whether the store is viewed as with the times, how clean, bright and contemporary it is, and whether the menu has been tweaked enough,” he said.
The return to the restaurant’s roots started with the resurrection of the name Kentucky Fried Chicken, scrapping the KFC abbreviation that was adopted in 1991 as an effort to downplay the word “fried,” which had become a dirty word among health-conscious consumers.
“Consumers expect the truth,” said Lechleiter. “There’s nothing wrong with the word ‘fried.’ No one’s asking people to eat it seven days a week.”
The old Colonel himself got a makeover, executed by San Francisco-based design and branding firm Tesser that both peeled decades off his mug and strengthened his connection to the brand. The plan included ditching the old white suit, broadening the Colonel’s smile and dressing him in an apron to put him “back in the kitchen,” as it were. The icon’s makeover reminds consumers that one man, Colonel Harland Sanders, created the well-known 11 herbs-and-spices recipe that endures today.
The key to the turnaround was to have Kentucky Fried Chicken reach a younger consumer, through menu offerings and the overall restaurant experience, without offending or turning away the older, loyal traditionalists.
The menu was broadened to allow people to enjoy chicken in different ways — in a bowl or as a sandwich, for instance — but all with the flavor of the original familiar recipe. The number and types of side dishes have been expanded too. And Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Flavor Station, a concept that lets the lunch crowd opt for a variety of chicken cuts with several different heated sauces, has extended the appeal of the restaurant at lunchtime. It has also garnered the company some good ink.
Advertising was necessary to appeal to as wide a demographic as possible — urban, suburban, international, young, old. “If you’ve got the ad dollars to communicate to all those audiences and the menu is broad enough, you can probably do it,” Paul said.
Lechleiter describes the redesign as “old-school cool” — a fresh, new image in a way that is still familiar and offers consumers a variety of experiences.
The new stores’ exteriors serve as billboards for the brand. Red prevails, with stars and stripes make the buildings more visually interesting and appealing. Windows run from the floor to the ceiling, much as they do in a retail operation, and help connect patrons to the outside world as well as letting in natural light.
Corrugated steel at the back of the building lends a hip, contemporary quality to the structure. At each store, signage will read, “Welcome to … ” whichever city it inhabits, to establish a relationship with customers and create the sense that they are entering their hometown restaurant. “It’s the idea that everyone has their own favorite Kentucky Fried Chicken,” said Lechleiter. “It’s trying to connect on a lot of different touch points.”
The interior design addresses the consumer desire that is so adeptly expressed in the catchphrase of another restaurateur, Burger King: “Have it your way.” The seating, for instance, gives people picnic tables for big, celebratory, family sit-downs during one visit and stools to sit at for a speedier, eat-and-run meal the next time.
“It brings variety, choice and different ways for people to interact with the brand,” said Lechleiter. “We want the experience to be whatever customers want it to be: You can go with your wife and have one experience; with kids it’s another experience, and alone it’s a different one.”
There is also some humor in the design. The light fixtures, for example, look like chicken buckets. And framed, custom artwork, too, depicts and celebrates the bucket. “Today there needs to be something that touches the soul or the funny bone of consumers,” said Lechleiter.
When sales are flagging, Paul says reimaging, rebranding and remodeling are all important tools for a turnaround. “It gets people back,” he said. “Consumers will respond. If it looks different, they’ll give it another try. If they hadn’t been there before, they’ll try it. Whether they’ll become regular customers is a different issue. Many times it works. Does it always work? No.”
Things are looking up for Kentucky Fried Chicken. Sales at the new Louisville store, which opened in April, are so far almost 2.5 times what is normal in annual sales, according to FRCH. Same-store sales across the chain have grown too. For the second quarter of last year, same-store sales were up 8 percent, versus only 2 percent a year earlier.
The prototype had to be flexible enough to work domestically and internationally. What plays in China may not play in Peoria and vice versa. In China multiple signage is common. In France the restaurant might need to fit into an existing, even historic, building rather than into a freestanding structure.
“Our design is a set of rules, a toolkit, that allows local differences to be accommodated, but with a design that still reflects the Kentucky Fried Chicken brand,” said Lechleiter.
In short, Kentucky Fried Chicken is ready to flaunt itself again.
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