The new concept will target more health conscious consumers by offer both higher-end food and a more modern, comfortable environment.
- The menu includes sandwiches, flatbreads, salads, and rice bowls that are available in a mix of global flavors like Sweet Orange Ginger, Caribbean Tango and Southwestern Baja. All entrees are made with grilled or fried chicken, but unlike KFC, the menu does not feature a bucket of fried chicken, any bone-in chicken pieces, or biscuits.
- The experience emphasizes freshness utilizing an open kitchen so consumers can watch their food being assembled, is geared towards slower-paced dinning experiences, and features WiFi to encourage consumers to hangout.
On the surface, KFC Eleven may seem like an appealing solution to help KFC reach new consumers, but I'd suggest there are large branding barriers that will likely be impossible for the concept to overcome no matter how strong their in-store execution is. More specifically, the branding of the concept name has several fatal flaws in terms of generating strong trial conversion.
KFC Eleven gets its name based on the 11 herbs and spices in the colonel's original recipe chicken. While its nice that the name connects back to the heritage of the brand, unfortunately, "KFC Eleven" sounds like the cross between "KFC" and the convenience store "7 Eleven". This combination makes the concept sound less premium than even a traditional KFC - not an easy task. Even the sign and logo look like they should belong to a convenience store.
Additionally, KFC has a larger negative halo surrounding freshness, health, and wellness. This negative halo will likely be very difficult for consumers to overcome.
Creating the optimal brand image is key to any strong marketing strategy. To this end, I do not understand why YUM Brands!, the owner of KFC, did not launch the concept under a different name.
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