'KFC Eleven' a Branding Failure?

KFC, one of the world's largest fast food chains, is set to unveiled a new fast casual concept (think Chipotle or Panera Bread) called KFC Eleven, on August 5th in Louisville, Kentucky. 

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.

Who let the Red Lobsters into the Olive Garden?

Darden Restaurant Inc, the operator of Red Lobster and Olive Garden, has opened three Red Lobster - Olive Garden combined store locations in smaller cities that they believe cannot economically support standalone locations.

As the picture below shows, the locations have two separate entrances entrances and dinning rooms, but reportedly share a bar area, kitchen, and bathrooms. Customers in one dinning room cannot order from the menu of the adjoining restaurant.

On the surface the strategy appears to make strategic sense, reach new customers by creating economies of scale to control costs and deliver incremental revenue.  Nevertheless, I question the overall strategy.  I would argue both restaurant chains have lost they way from their historic brand compasses and now currently suffer from a lack of authenticity.  For example I would venture to guess that many middle class Americans question how fresh the seafood at Red Lobster really is, while Olive Garden is hardly seen as real italian.  The fact that consumer sentiment has drifted from these initial positions is due to business decisions putting profit in front of brand equity.  The two in one concept further plays up the chain aspects of both brands and helps continue diluting their authenticity.  Then there is the old marketing rule that if do two things well enough it means you don't do anything great.

While Yum brands has executed this strategy on many of their fast food and QSR brands (KFC, Taco Bell, Long John Silvers, and Pizza Hut) with a major difference versus Darden's full-service restaurants being that they usually have joint dinning rooms, which enable families to all order different foods and then sit together delivering a benefit for the customer.