Challenge:
KFC, the world’s most popular chicken restaurant chain, required a new in-store artwork package for their KFC restaurants in Central and Eastern Europe.
These restaurants are part of their franchise network and each one needs to reflect the very best aspects of the KFC brand.
A dedicated team of marketing professionals are responsible for supporting this growing customer base across the whole of Europe and they need a design partner they can trust to live up to KFC’s brand value of “Always original” and not accept second best. Toast Food was up to the task and showed KFC how it lives up to the challenge of always being original.
Approach:
Following our full process of brand strategy and planning, concept sketches and development by many of the Toast team, we also worked alongside KFC’s European Brand Managers, Dallas-based Global Brand Managers and Architects to develop a solution that creates a dynamic and youthful feel whilst remaining true to the KFC brand.
We reviewed the entire brand toolkit, putting ourselves in the franchisee’s shoes and from this viewpoint pitched our honest thoughts and practical solutions. These ideas were discussed and developed with the KFC team and evolved into a set of themes that complemented and supported the existing toolkit.
What our client says…
“Toast has seized the brief to come up with some fresh-thinking that will give customers a new insight into what makes KFC such an enjoyable experience. Their work clearly conveys our core brand values: natural, authentic and high quality, and gives us a platform which we can adopt globally in the future.”
Austin Cooke, Development Director for KFC CEE
Solution:
Because the new artwork needed imagery outside of the existing KFC brand library, we storyboarded and art directed photoshoots of ‘real’ KFC cooks and ingredients, with photographers MM Studios and Richard Tymon to create a series of unique and authentic artworks that are interchangeable and adaptable, which is key for different sized KFC restaurants across many European markets.
The new designs build on the strength of the KFC brand and aim to reinforce two main messages: all KFC food is freshly prepared in-store every day by trained cooks and they still follow the original Colonel Sanders recipe, which is why the KFC taste is unique. The artwork will be used throughout the restaurants and includes large-scale graphic panels of 4m wide, to information panels, glass panels and posters. It’s designed to be interchangeable with existing designs and flexible, so it will work on both smaller and larger restaurant spaces, giving franchisees everything they need to create engaging, on-brand retail outlets.
Since this original project, Toast Food has gone on to support the KFC CEE Marketing team with a range of other projects from events to day-to-day marketing materials.
