On May 10th, KFC launched the sale of "Small Dumplings"! Following the launch of Wuhan hot dry noodles for 7 yuan a bowl in Wuhan in January.
KFC also sold small dumplings in Hangzhou, Wenzhou and Shaoxing, 9.9 yuan for 4 pieces, dine-in and takeaway.
Western-style fast food giants are slowly invading the "traditional Chinese category", from fritters and porridge to Wuhan hot dry noodles and small dumplings, and it is gradually accelerating its pace.
What exactly is KFC dumplings? Western-style fast food giants frequently test the waters, looking for an incremental breakfast market, what new enlightenment has been brought to restaurant companies?
01 Deep ploughing localization marketing
The small dumplings launched by KFC this time are a new model jointly signed with Zhiweiguan.
Zhiweiguan is a famous long-established brand in Hangzhou, which has a history of more than 100 years, opened more than 80 branches, known as "Zhiwei parking, smelling the fragrance and getting off the horse", and is a famous snack that tourists must punch in Hangzhou.
KFC is accelerating the localization process of the Chinese market, and it is also seeking new interest growth points and category breakthroughs.
If you want to achieve impressive results in marketing localization, the product audience needs to be wide enough.
KFC's choice of a long-established brand rooted in Hangzhou for 100 years can be said to occupy a natural advantage at the user level.
1. Jointly name again, leveraging the local century-old brand
The global Western-style fast food giant sells hot dry noodles and sells Small Dumplings for Chinese breakfast, which makes people feel unreliable.
At least one wonders if the small dumplings made by KFC will not be delicious.
In order to dispel customers' concerns about "taste", KFC once again chose to co-brand, hot dry noodles are launched in cooperation with Wuhan's well-known brand "Dahankou", and Xiaolongbao is jointly with Hangzhou's century-old zhiweiguan this time.
Founded in 1913, Zhiweiguan has a history of 100 years, opening more than 80 branches, and its small dumplings and cat ears are the famous snacks that must be punched in Hangzhou.
There is a huge customer base and cognitive endorsement, whether it is popularity, taste, or word of mouth have a strong accumulation, with such a century-old brand, KFC has a strong support on breakfast products.
2. Explore product boundaries and seek new interest growth points
In fact, in addition to the small dumplings, KFC has moved almost all the Chinese breakfast fritters, soy milk, porridge, hot dry noodles and other items to its own shop.
Behind this is that Western-style brands want to cater to the Chinese stomach, and open up products that fit the breakfast habits of Chinese, and it is also a way for brands to explore product boundaries and seek new growth points for brands.
At the beginning of this year, KFC launched the "Good Morning Taste of the City" Wuhan chapter.
After the brand launched the brand's #KFC first noodles #- #KFC Wuhan hot dry noodles #, many Wuhan netizens rushed to the store to punch in.
It is also the envy of many users who pay attention to the KFC brand, so as to help the brand achieve marketing conversion in a subtle way.
3. With the help of "city taste", create a brand exclusive memory point
In fact, KFC's "Good Morning Taste of the City" series of marketing is not only involved in catering, but also combines representative city attractions, mascots, etc. with brand marketing.
For example, with the integration of Chengdu pandas into the brand's marketing to launch a single product, borrowing Beijing's "royal" elements and brand marketing combination, launching a unique Beijing flavor of marketing, etc., these are all from the city's taste.
Whether it is hot dry noodles in Wuhan, or Zhiweiguan small dumplings in Hangzhou, or borrowing Chengdu's "rolling" for marketing.
These have strong regional characteristics, which helps brands to achieve marketing with points instead of faces.
That is, through the marketing with great urban characteristics, a closer connection between the brand and the user is established.
At the same time, with the local characteristics of the brand and the user's memory to produce a strong association, so that the original well-known products become the medium of connection between the brand and the user.
4. Make use of the advantages of their own outlets to focus on "convenience"
The first element of breakfast is to be "convenient and convenient", breakfast time is tight, many people will choose to eat nearby, and few people will drive far away for breakfast.
KFC itself has great advantages in outlets, such as site selection is mostly in office buildings, core business circles, many outlets, suitable for white-collar workers, office workers and so on to eat breakfast nearby.
You can dine in or order in advance to pick up at the store. More conveniently, this time also launched a takeaway, with its own takeaway home delivery, but also for many customers who want to eat at home, saving time in the morning.
With the supreme status of Hangzhou Xiaolongbao in the national Xiaolongbao industry, coupled with the brand endorsement of Hangzhou's century-old brand Zhiweiguan.
The launch of this "Zhiwei Xiaolong" has a strong product accumulation in terms of popularity and word of mouth.
KFC knows that only the perceived value of the product itself to the customer is greater than the marketing value, in order to enhance the customer's trust in the brand.
Product is king, is the most important guarantee for KFC in the future localization marketing.
02 Marketing is the second brand strategy is the focus
No wonder in recent years, some netizens have continued to sigh: KFC is really becoming more and more like a "Chinese restaurant".
The benefit of increasingly local menu variety is that it can expand the reach of your audience by enriching your product categories.
At the same time, it can also skillfully use the contrast between the positioning of "Western food" and "Chinese food" to detonate the topic and enhance the brand popularity. In fact, KFC does rely on selling Chinese food and has gained a lot of traffic.
Of course, the drawbacks of this approach are also quite obvious.
First of all, as a Western-style fast food brand, KFC frequently involves in Chinese meals, which is easy to be labeled as not focusing on the main business, affecting the overall positioning of the brand.
Secondly, as the saying goes, there is a specialization in the art industry.
For brands like KFC, which have a large number of stores and high supply chain requirements, it is difficult to imagine how difficult it is for its meal products to go out of the circle with excellent taste.
Once the taste of the product is misaligned with consumer expectations, the brand reputation may turn over.
However, Ben Shangshu feels that KFC's localization road is not "off track", after all, for brands, constantly pushing new is one of the effective ways to promote consumers to maintain a sense of freshness to the brand.
What needs to be reminded of KFC is that when deeply cultivating the localization strategy, it is necessary to base itself on culture, and there is an inseparable and delicate connection between traditional Chinese culture and traditional food.
When implementing a localization marketing plan, brands should use culture as the entrance, not just stay on the surface. Presenting consumers with the possibility of brand culture diversity is the correct way to open localization marketing.
In the future, KFC's "Good Morning Taste of the City" series of activities will continue to be promoted.
In addition to using localized products to cater to the habits of Chinese consumers, the marketing logic behind brand localization also includes the use of topics to attract attention and attract traffic to achieve marketing purposes.
With the city as the limit, the time node, with the help of the city's characteristics and the blessing of the century-old store, it can make every new push of KFC become a hot topic.
This not only attracts local customers to the store, but also stimulates customers' enthusiasm for buying with a limited amount of hunger marketing.
Use the curiosity of punching in to taste new to stimulate fans' desire to buy, thus helping brands achieve marketing conversion.
Of course, behind the "Good Morning Taste of the City" localization marketing to obtain traffic, KFC also has a deeper brand strategy.
Through continuous efforts in products and content, KFC integrates popular items with content that users are interested in, and establishes a closer connection between brands and customers with marketing with urban characteristics.
Integrating the brand into the culture and life of local customers makes KFC's brand image more affinity with the Chinese.
Fading the cloak of "foreign" image, the combination of Chinese and Western marketing methods has helped KFC re-brand positioning in the competition brought by various foreign restaurants, creating a western restaurant that belongs to Chinese.
From the national local product innovation positioning to the characteristics of each city, in-depth and refined marketing is more conducive to strengthening the emotional connection between customers and KFC and increasing the stickiness of users.
Finally, with a point to lead the face, the customers in the national market are precision marketed, continue to exert efforts, and form a unique memory symbol of the brand to put the brand in an advantageous position in the market competition.