Marketing Strategy: Should El Pollo Loco Keep Taunting KFC?
Restaurant marketing experts commend El Pollo Loco for poking fun at the fast-food giant, but they warn its most recent attack could come back to bite.
By David Farkas, Senior Editor -- Chain Leader, 6/26/2009 10:30:00 AM
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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. |
On June 12, Costa Mesa, Calif.-based restaurant chain El Pollo Loco launched a particularly wicked salvo in its battle for market share against 5,500-unit KFC. Both on a Web site and in a television commercial, the grilled-chicken chain derides its rival for using beef powder and rendered beef fat in the marinade for KFC's new Kentucky Grilled Chicken.
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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This is not say there isn't risk, but it's fairly small. Remember, El Pollo Loco has a lot at stake. [Grilled chicken] is their business, their core product. The ad puts some doubt in your mind. The share gain will be mitigated by what the El Pollo Loco guys are doing to defend their brand.
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.
