Kent's basic localized marketing strategy: being a marketing colonel

McDonald's 2003 new brand campaign with the theme "I love it" and a series of aggressive marketing campaigns that followed did not seem to stop the progress of its old rival, KFC. On December 17, 2004, KFC quietly opened its 1200th restaurant in China [blocked Advertising] in Sanya, Hainan, far ahead of McDonald's 604 branches. Although Su Jingshi, president of China Yum Catering Group, modestly said that KFC's success in the Chinese market "has something to do with customer taste, mainland customers like to eat chicken, which is naturally good for us", but we are more willing to believe The differentiated competitive strategy implemented in recent years is the real reason for KFC to maintain its competitive advantage. To interpret the success of KFC in the Chinese market, localization strategy and health strategy are two key words.

Localization strategy: foreign fast food is very Chinese.

Localization strategy, that is, the idea of global adaptation. It is a strategy adopted by enterprises to integrate into the target market and to become a member of the target market. It requires enterprises not to regard themselves as foreign market intruders, but as an inherent member of the target market to integrate into the local culture. It emphasizes that enterprises can adapt to the environment to obtain more space for development. This paper focuses on the following aspects of Kent's basic localization strategy:

Brand localization: Colonel Sanders wears Tang clothes. When McDonald's hip-hop advertising style makes the brand image more and more foreign-style, KFC is committed to the localization of the brand image. During the Spring Festival in 2003, Colonel Sanders of KFC began to put on Tang clothes to greet customers at more than 800 stores in 170 cities in China. If today's McDonald's uncle has become synonymous with youth, fun, energy and cool, then Grandpa KFC represents the traditional Chinese family, affection, friendship and tacit understanding. Opening the image gap between "native" and "foreign" with McDonald's not only makes KFC avoid the interference of rival marketing communication effectively, but also attracts the middle-aged and elderly consumers who originally rejected foreign fast food.

Product localization: Chinese flavor foreign fast food. In the past, eating fast food at KFC was a rare reward for parents to their children, but now KFC has become a place frequented by young consumers. If they serve chicken legs, hamburgers and French fries day after day, consumers who grow up eating Chinese food will soon get bored. Today's young consumers pursue change and freshness, so constantly developing new products that suit their tastes is the key to maintaining customer loyalty. KFC spared no effort in the localization of its products and adopted a three-pronged approach: first, to improve exotic flavors, such as Mexican chicken rolls, New Orleans grilled wings and Portuguese egg tarts. Second, launch Chinese fast food in line with Chinese consumers' eating habits, such as rice (cold rice fragrant mushroom rice), soup (hibiscus vegetable soup, Shredded Pork with Pickled Vegetable Soup), porridge (Minced Pork Congee with Preserved Egg, Chinese wolfberry, Pumpkin Porridge, etc.); third, develop new products with Chinese regional characteristics, such as Beijing-flavored old Beijing chicken rolls, Sichuan-flavored spicy chicken, Cantonese-flavored grumpy meat, etc.

Health strategy: from junk food to health expert

With the strengthening of the concept of health, Chinese consumers realize that foreign fast food can easily lead to obesity and call it junk food. If this concept continues to expand, it will inevitably lead to a massive loss of customers of KFC. KFC's health strategy is to closely combine brand with health and sports through promotion activities, and complete the transformation of brand positioning from "chicken cooking expert" to "balanced nutrition and healthy life advocate".

Balanced diet: foreign fast food is also nutritious. In 2004, KFC, together with experts from the National Food and Nutrition Advisory Committee and the Chinese Nutrition Society, twice issued the White Paper on China's KFC Health Policy. In the White Paper, KFC points out that the human body consumes more energy than it consumes as the root cause of obesity, and describes KFC's food health policy and a great deal of work on health education. The release of the White Paper on China's KFC Health Policy has formally promoted the transformation of KFC's brand image into an "advocate of balanced nutrition and healthy living" through endorsement by authoritative organizations. it has played a positive role in eliminating consumers' bad impression that foreign fast food is unhealthy, unnutritious and easy to lead to obesity, and took the lead in setting industry standards for the fast food industry.

Sports marketing: move healthier. In April 2004, KFC launched the "Sports Outstanding" program. Famous gymnast Li Xiaopeng, Athens Olympic tennis champions Li Ting and Sun Tiantian became the leaders of the program. The vibrant breath and enterprising spirit of the three sports stars have a strong appeal among young people. KFC hopes to use their influence to encourage more young people to participate in sports and love sports. Inviting sports stars to endorse KFC has injected health, self-confidence and vitality into the KFC brand, reflecting the product characteristics of balanced nutrition, and further strengthening KFC's brand association in terms of health.

Inspiration from the success of KFC

A few years ago, people still remember the "ice cream price war" and "chicken burger war" between KFC and McDonald's. The low-level competition at the product level not only failed to distinguish between winners and losers, but also hurt both sides. In recent years, KFC has avoided the tit-for-tat confrontation with McDonald's, jumped out of the low-level price competition, and implemented a differentiated competitive strategy at high levels such as brand image, product innovation and marketing promotion. Effectively formed a market gap with McDonald's, and continued to maintain its competitive advantage and leading position. No one would have thought of making foreign fast food very Chinese, but KFC did it; maybe someone wanted to make foreign fast food healthier, but KFC did it first. According to the competition master Michael? Porter's point of view: if you and your competitors compete in the same way, you will eventually have to fight a price war, and the strategy is to make you different and unique, and there are many ways to achieve a differentiation strategy. such as brand image, technical characteristics, customer service, business network and so on, if the enterprise differentiation strategy is successful, it can establish a competitive defense position and effectively meet the challenges.