Anyone else feel a little uneasy that the industry press is praising a CMO who fired the agency who resurrected KFC, ran one of the most brutal pitch processes in years and has immediately made the work much worse?
https://www-adweek-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/inside-kfcs-marketing-strategy-with-a-new-cmo-creative-and-media-agencies/amp/
No, but that’s because I don’t respect the industry press enough.
I mean, what is ad week if not an echo chamber of the status quo?
They have to keep the fugazi going.
Was the creative fantastic and made the brand relevant—for the first time in decades? Absolutely!
However sales were growing with an older demographic, which seems to go against their business goals. Sadly, the almighty dollar rules all.
For the record, I still think W+K should be their agency.
Chief
100% true, but that imo has more to do with their aging menu. No 24 year old wants a bucket of fried chicken lol and they were WAY late to the chicken sandwich.
I work on a competitor, so I’ve deep dived this a few times.
Rising Star
It’s like some of you have never interacted with a client before or just weren’t told the realities of working with marketing people in ad school. We need to stop treating this KFC agency change like some mini 9/11. New cmos come in, old agency goes out.
Rising Star
Where are all of these nice hand holding pitches going on then?
Chief
KFC is part of YUM brands. Same with Pizza Hut. They always blame and jump agencies b/c no one there wants to admit how unhealthy their products are. The best advertising in the world won’t sell a product no one wants to buy.
What’s the new work?
I feel more uneasy that the industry press keeps taking agency jobs.
Just to try to set the record straight as I was on one of the losing agency teams, the new CMO was not in the briefing where W&K work was shared, or in the first creative meeting. I think you can attribute most of the disfunction of the pitch to that. They clearly should have just waited a few weeks longer to start.
We were initially in the pitch process but self eliminated at some point. According to our leadership they didn’t feel it was worth pursuing.
Someone once told me the industry rags are actually mostly read by marketers, and I feel like that explains a lot.