KFC

Transforming the future of food

Services

Digital Strategy

Industries

Consumer

An established brand evolves

Paving the way for new possibilities

Challenge

KFC wanted to evolve from a global restaurant to a hub for innovation that invests in transforming the future of food.
Solution

Through extensive research, stakeholder interviews, and collaborative sessions with the KFC team, Method developed a prioritized pipeline of future propositions for KFC UK that addressed consumer trends and needs.

Setting up the business for long-term success

The results

In a world where mobile food delivery is disrupting quick service restaurants and changes in customer behavior are only accelerating, KFC turned to Method to help them develop a prioritized pipeline of innovations 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.

“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

Revealing opportunities through research

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 also informed a better understanding of the organization’s vision for the future, in-flight efforts, and priorities. We then 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.
From ideas to implementation

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.