Overview

In a world where mobile food delivery is disrupting quick service restaurants, and COVID has accelerated changing customer behavior, KFC turned to Method to help them develop a prioritized pipeline of propositions that will spark growth and shift perceptions.

Over the course of five weeks, we collaborated on research and explored new possibilities to increase frequency of visits and attract new customers. After assessing and prioritizing these ideas using a strategic framework, Method created propositions for internal socialization and testing, along with a checklist of capabilities and other resources to help KFC plan for the road ahead.

Offerings

Digital Strategy
User Research
Product Strategy and Innovation

“What a pleasure it was working with you…The project was a great release from the day to day, I really enjoyed the debate and the team pushing our thinking.”

- Jack Foley, Marketing Manager - Growth Strategy & Experience

An established brand evolves

The Challenge

Facing a rapidly shifting market, KFC elected to embrace change. Rather than leaning back, they wanted to lean into future customer behaviors.

Historically, KFC has been a global brand and restaurant that serves genuine and delicious meals. Now, they want to evolve into a hub for innovation that invests in transforming the future of food. Method was there to help.

Revealing opportunities through research

Research process

To inform our propositions, the Method team dove deep into research to connect disparate dots in new ways, creating fertile ground for ideation.

We drew from industry trends, emerging customer behavior, and new technologies being trialed. Trends research helped uncover white space for KFC in the future by identifying consumer trends and prospective needs of both current and target UK customers. Stakeholder interviews informed a better understanding of the organization’s vision for the future, in-flight efforts, and priorities. We also extracted lessons from the periphery, looking into adjacent industries, subcultures, micro-communities, and wider world themes.

A prioritized plan to move from insight to impact

With research insights in hand, Method led several collaborative sessions to analyze the findings and identify opportunities to create KFC’s future-facing vision. Each opportunity was then evaluated for its feasibility, viability, desirability, and alignment with their business strategy. This prioritization framework provided a simple lens to assess the work, as well as a methodology to ensure we could be consistent across ideas.

The result of these exercises was a prioritized pipeline of future propositions, each with demonstrable ability to drive frequency with existing consumers or bring new customers into the brand over the next five years. Business impact for each idea was clear, measurable, and testable, enabling the business to invest in the ideas more easily.

Setting up the business for long-term success

Results

Businesses require design, data, the right investments, and internal capabilities to deliver successful propositions. Method helped KFC with each of these elements, moving beyond theory toward a successful new reality.

Together, we created forward-thinking propositions that could be socialized internally and tested easily, while equipping KFC with prioritization frameworks, capability checklists, and additional resources to bridge the gap between idea and implementation.