Marketing Strategy: Should El Pollo Loco Keep Taunting KFC?
By David Farkas, Senior Editor --Chain Leader,06/26/2009
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El Pollo Loco, which grills chicken over an open flame, has criticized KFC for producing grilled chicken on racks in an oven. |
Louisville, Ky.-based KFC defended its use of the ingredients, telling the Los Angeles Times that the ingredients amounted to just 0.2 percent of the total formula. For the record, 460-unit El Pollo Loco doesn't include ingredient information on its Web site for its marinade, which the company claims is made mostly with citrus juice.
"There is nothing in our marinade that you wouldn't find in kitchens across America," El Pollo Loco Vice President of Communications Julie Weeks wrote in an e-mail to Chain Leader.
To find out how restaurant marketers judged El Pollo Loco's attack, we asked three former restaurant marketing executives for their reactions to the video and the television commercial that features El Pollo Loco CEO Steve Carley. We wondered:
* Did El Pollo Loco overstep an ethical boundary? After all, KFC itself had made the marinade's ingredient list available on its own Web site.
* Can an effort like this come back to bite you?
Karen Brennan, president of Brandscapes and former chief marketing officer for Coco's and Carrows in Carlsbad, Calif.
I don't think it is a question of ethics or fairness. It's an issue of competition. Where you can find a competitive advantage you tend to do something like that. Although this issue is a very fine line, and do we really want to go there as an industry? More importantly, what is the impact on consumers? What will be their takeaway? How will they judge it?
Remember he who throws the first stone. You might be starting a war you don't want to finish. But I believe the issue has more to do with what your target market thinks of it. They will decide how it reflects on the chain.
Neil Culbertson, president of Growth Partners and former chief marketing officer for Littleton, Colo.-based Red Robin Gourmet Burgers
It think what [El Pollo Loco is] doing is brilliant. It's the classic David and Goliath. I feel it is perfectly appropriate if you have the facts to back it up. Where you cross the line is when you know it isn't true but go and say it anyway. In this instance, El Pollo Loco used KFC's own published information and shared it with consumers.
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Tim Hackbardt, principal, White Barn Group, and former vice president of marketing for Rubio's Fresh Mexican Grill and Del Taco
El Pollo Loco is revealing the honest truth. It is completely ethical. Not being completely open about beef in the marinade of a chicken product is not [ethical]. This is especially true today given the fact that so many people have special diets that do not include beef for both health and religious reasons. You would have thought that [KFC] would have learned this lesson from the Mc Donald's french fry legal challenges.
It certainly can [come back to bite you] if your own house isn't clean. A consumer organization could take this opportunity to take a swipe at El Pollo Loco since they are so high profile now, if there is something out of the ordinary that can be exploited for the public relations gain of the organization and their overall message. KFC could also pull back the curtain if they find something, but probably won't as they have little to gain. They would be viewed as the big guy picking on the little guy.
However, if this latest move by El Pollo Loco actually eats into the KFC cash register, you never know what they might do.
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| Submitted by: | Rich Danley (rich@successunlimited.net) 6/30/2009 4:20:59 PM PT |
| Location: | Southern California |
| Occupation: | CEO |
To qualify my comments, I was Senior Marketing Manager for Sunkist's Process Products Division with global responsibility for three divisions (consumer, commodity, industrial products) in a past life. Also held other positions with PesiCo and 7-up.
Regarding Carley's move to attempt to establish a beach head on what he believes to be a defensable position, it's terrific if he succeeds in marshalling his resources at a single point of attack. His problem is that once he's made that move, he must now be able to defend this fort.
Unfortunately it always comes down to a war of attrition. He who has the bigger guns wins. In this particular case, it will be interesting to watch how KFC handles this. If they wish to send out an effective message to the remaining regional brands who attempt to usurp their power, then they would be wise to come down on El Pollo Loco like Godzilla on a flea...and leave no doubt in the minds of any other CEO thinking of attempting to encroach on their market postion what they can expect from a retalitory point of view. Otherwise every secondary brand in the country will view this as an open door policy...and they should.
Irregardless of proposed issues of ethics, honesty, or integrity, on the battlefield at the end of the day, he who is left standing lives to fight another day.
If I were part of the leadership team at KFC, I would leave no doubt in anyones mind who owns the ground being fought over.
Success Unlimited
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