Yum! CMO on cultural relevance, being innovative & creative risk taking (Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut) - Ken Muench

Summary

Podcast Summary: Uncensored CMO

Episode: Yum! CMO on Cultural Relevance, Being Innovative & Creative Risk-Taking (Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut) – Ken Minch
Host: Jon Evans
Release Date: February 26, 2025

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1. Introduction

In this episode of Uncensored CMO, host Jon Evans welcomes Ken Minch, the Global Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Yum Brands. The discussion delves into Ken's extensive experience in the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) industry, focusing on cultural relevance, innovation, creative risk-taking, and the unique challenges of leading marketing efforts for iconic brands like Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut.

2. Ken Minch's Career Path

Ken Minch shares his unconventional journey into marketing. Initially a creative writing major at the University of California, San Diego, Ken pivoted to marketing after realizing the financial impracticality of a literary career.

Ken Minch [01:13]: "I quickly realized there was no money in it whatsoever and I got an offer to be a junior copywriter at an ad agency."

His career blossomed as he transitioned from creative roles to strategic positions, eventually leading an agency in Chicago. Yum Brands acquired his agency, allowing him to maintain independence while working closely with Yum’s brands globally.

3. In-House vs. External Agencies

Ken emphasizes the importance of balancing in-house capabilities with external agency partnerships.

Ken Minch [05:20]: "The benefit of outside agency, of course, is you bring outside thinking in... we act sort of independently... you get the best of both worlds."

By maintaining a portion of external work, Yum Brands ensures fresh perspectives and continuous innovation while leveraging extensive internal knowledge and data accrued over a decade.

4. Compound Creativity and Consistency

The conversation touches on the concept of compound creativity, where consistent collaboration with the same agency enhances the quality of work over time.

Jon Evans [05:58]: "The more often you change your creative agency, the lower the work and the more consistent you are with creative agency."

Ken concurs, highlighting that long-term relationships with creative partners enable deeper understanding and more impactful campaigns.

5. The Red Framework: Ease, Distinctiveness, Relevance

Ken introduces the Red Framework, an amalgamation of the EDR principles: Ease, Distinctiveness, and Relevance. This framework bridges the gap between cultural relevance (as advocated by Douglas Holt) and top-of-mind awareness (as per Byron Sharp).

Ken Minch [17:41]: "The Truth is you have to have a base of top of mind awareness. But if you really are a good brand, you're going to have cultural relevance too as well."

Ease refers to making the product easy to notice, remember, and access. Distinctiveness involves maintaining unique brand assets that stand out in a crowded market. Relevance ensures the brand resonates culturally with consumers.

6. Examples of Successful Campaigns

a. Doritos Locos Taco
One of Yum Brands' standout successes, the Doritos Locos Taco, exemplifies cultural relevance by focusing the campaign on the fans rather than the product itself.

Ken Minch [07:58]: "We would not talk about the Doritos Locos Taco at all. All we're going to do is talk about the fans of the Doritos Locos Taco."

This strategy created significant buzz and positioned Taco Bell as a culturally cool brand.

b. Saucy by KFC
An experimental concept, Saucy by KFC, showcases Ken's approach to innovation by allowing teams to operate independently and take creative risks.

Ken Minch [44:58]: "Saucy by KFC... it just became this kind of like, that's a better idea. Let's go. I'll rewrite the case later."

This initiative focuses on unique flavors and a modern restaurant aesthetic, targeting Gen Z consumers.

c. Live Moss Cafe
Another innovative venture, Live Moss Cafe, serves as a drink concept for Taco Bell in San Diego, further demonstrating Yum Brands' commitment to creative experimentation.

7. Innovation Approach at Yum

Ken attributes Yum Brands' innovative edge to a culture that encourages big swings and creative risk-taking.

Ken Minch [35:59]: "Innovation, you have to have the right mindset... creative powerhouses really drive the show."

Yum Brands employs multiple avenues for innovation, including collaborations with external chefs, diverse innovation houses, and immersive brainstorming sessions at Collider, their creative hub.

8. Managing a Global Organization

Leading a vast, global organization requires granting significant autonomy to regional CMOs.

Ken Minch [53:18]: "Each CMO is entirely independent... more than anything, it comes down to smart, heart and courage."

This structure fosters ownership and responsibility, allowing for tailored strategies that resonate locally while aligning with the overarching brand vision.

9. Traits of a Great CMO

According to Ken, successful CMOs are idea-driven, possess a balance of smart strategic thinking, heart (ethical considerations), and courage to take risks.

Ken Minch [55:59]: "A true CMO... can identify a good idea and champions that idea and runs with that idea."

He also underscores the importance of understanding consumer behavior and integrating behavioral science into marketing strategies.

10. Final Insights and Conclusions

The episode concludes with reflections on the dynamic state of marketing within Yum Brands. Ken expresses enthusiasm about the current era of innovation and the company's ability to empower marketers to take bold steps.

Ken Minch [52:47]: "It just feels like right now is electric, more electric than it's ever been."

Ken also highlights the significance of ownership and responsibility, citing examples like Meg Farren's proactive response during KFC UK's chicken shortage crisis as a testament to effective leadership.

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Notable Quotes

• Ken Minch [06:04]: "When you grip the bat too tightly in baseball and you swing, you're probably going to miss... Food can be delicious and tasty and interesting."

• Ken Minch [24:26]: "The dirty secret is by far the most powerful thing that you can do in the world of marketing is increase ease."

• Ken Minch [29:41]: "Think Outside the Bun... it's the same issue."

• Ken Minch [47:02]: "Saucy by KFC... it's an experiment and it's a lot of fun."

• Ken Minch [55:59]: "Our best CMOs... are going to be idea driven."

• Ken Minch [59:17]: "You can be too left brain..."

• Jon Evans [64:02]: "Hold it lightly and swing big."

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Conclusion

This episode of Uncensored CMO offers valuable insights into the intricacies of marketing within the QSR industry. Ken Minch's emphasis on cultural relevance, creative risk-taking, and the strategic balance between ease, distinctiveness, and relevance provides a comprehensive framework for successful marketing. His experiences underscore the importance of fostering a culture that encourages innovation, ownership, and the courage to take bold swings, making this episode a must-listen for marketing professionals seeking to navigate the competitive landscape of global brands.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Uncensored cmo. In this episode, I'm delighted to be joined by the global CMO for Yum brands, Ken Minch. And we're going to be talking all things QSR related, innovation, advertising, new concept stores, and what it takes to be a really successful global cmo, leading marketers all around the world. This is a fascinating episode. Ken's got so much wisdom and he's also the author of a brilliant book that brings the theory and practice of marketing together. It's called Red and I thoroughly recommend you reading it. Here it is, my interview with Ken Minch. So, Ken, welcome to the Uncensored cmo.

[A]

Thank you very much for having me. It's really cool to be here.

[B]

Really looking forward to this conversation. And thanks for hosting us in Taco Bell headquarters as well.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

So anyone watching on video will get a little glimpse of where we are.

[A]

There you go. Southern California, indeed.

[B]

Yeah, happy to be here. Although I brought the weather with me. I was expecting you did, you did.

[A]

It was going to be sun and shining, the typ dry weather that we have. But actually we could have used the rain right now.

[B]

So if there was ever a moment to bring the rain, then, then now's the moment. So thank you so much for hosting me. Love to know. How did you get into this career? Where did it start for you and where did the connection with Yum first happen?

[A]

Interesting. So I, I had never thought of marketing and advertising, you know, my entire childhood career. I, I, I actually started, I was a creative writing major at University of California, San Diego and was going to be a, I don't know, remember, novelist, poet, I have no idea. And I, and I quickly realized there was no money in it whatsoever and I got an offer to be a junior copywriter at an ad agency. And I thought, ah, what the hell, I'll do it for the summer. And then from there it just sort of blossomed. I went from one shop to another shop as a creative and then eventually got into strategy and then, you know, ended up running a big shop in Chicago with a few other heads of strategy, FCB in Chicago reporting to a few great, great, great mentors. And then interestingly, we, what happened at that point? Oh yeah, we moved out. We came to, to present to California. There was an issue with Taco Bell. They were, they had several quarters of declining sales or something was going on. And we came out here and started working on their issues and, and they said, well, we really like what you're doing. I don't think we're going to continue a relationship with the agency, but it would be great if you came and work here or broke off and started your own shop. So that's what we did. We broke off and we started our own shop. A couple folks, and we did a bunch of work for a bunch of brands. Eventually they wanted us more on KFC and more on Pizza Hut and more on KFC Global and all these. So it's massive piece of business. We couldn't do it all. And we had other clients that were a lot of fun to work with. And so eventually I think they got frustrated and out of anger and spite, they acquired us. And then that way we would just, you know, get rid of everybody else on our, on our roster. And so we did. We were fortunate enough to work with them. It was a great, great move just because they're so exciting and intuitive marketers at Yum. And we did. So we came over, we were acquired, but they let us stay in our own little. At first they said, no, no, you got to move into the Taco Bell building. We quickly said, no, no, the whole benefit of this is to be outside and be in the real world. You should go to Collider offices that are nearby here. And so we did, we kept our own space and did our own thing. And eventually I became the CMO of yum, but still run Collider. And Collider's is now about 35 people or 33 people, something like that. And we do work in 165 countries around the world. Wow.

[B]

Yeah, I love that because the debate often in marketing is in house versus external agency. And of course the, you know, in house you can be quick and you're closest to the customer and you understand what's going on. You can tap into the network. But the benefit of outside agency, of course, is you bring outside thinking in. You know, the creatives are working on lots of different challenges, keep some fresh. I guess in this case you probably got the best of both worlds in a way.

[A]

So we quickly realized at first when we were acquired, we realized, yes, know what, if we stop doing all outside work, it's a disservice. And so we kept on doing work for key clients. Just a few clients a year, no more than like say 20% of what we did, external clients. And that just opened up the world to us. Right. And so we, we do work with a pretty major airline and a bunch of other, you know, packaged food companies and a medical and. And it just opens up your mind and keeps everybody fresh and young and interesting and. And really I think that's the key to our success is that we do a little bit of outside stuff. We act sort of independently. Even though I am the CMO of YUM and we are all YUM employees. We are part of yum, there's no question. But we just have a mindset of acting independently. So you get the best of both worlds. But. But it's a huge point. So let's say we've been doing this for 10 years. If this had been an external sort of company doing this, I mean we would have probably fired them years ago. They would have left with all the data and all the know how and all the learning. But now we have 10 years of an insane amount of learning and databases that go back 10 years in all these countries. So it is a huge benefit as long as you can stay fresh and not get stuck in a mindset.

[B]

As you just remind me of something. We did this little bit of work last year called compound creativity and we looked at 50 brands and we looked at over about 10 year period at things like how consistent was the idea, how consistent was the execution, how consistent were the teams and that sort of thing. And we actually looked at this. This won't surprise you at all, but the more often you change your creative agency, the lower the work and the more consistent you are with creative agency. It was like this compounding effect. Not just that the work was better, but the work got better on being better, if you know what I mean. So the gap between not changing to changing, we call it the cost of change, cost of changing agency. I mean sometimes you have to. Right. But you need to build in the cost.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know what I mean? And it's fascinating. You're getting that compound creativity knowledge, expertise retained.

[A]

Yeah, we don't do any creative. All we do is strategy. But the point remains and I see that with our creative agencies around the world too. Anytime we have a big change, I cringe because I know it's going to take a hit.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And when we have these long term relationships with, you know, great agencies, the work does get significantly better over time because everybody challenges everybody and there's a sense of. I think what it is is you feel comfortable in the relationship and you can start, well, let me hold the bat a little bit looser and swing bigger and try to get a home run versus you're new. You're like, what do you want me to do? I'll do exactly as you say. And you're holding the bat tightly.

[B]

That's a lovely phrase in the book, by the way. That was one of the things that stood out that I put a big kind of highlighter pen around. Explain that idea a little bit more because I think it's a very true.

[A]

Yeah, so I have no idea about most sports, especially baseball, but one of my bosses, actually A boss at FCB told me years ago, maybe it was 15 years ago now, he said, look, when you grip the bat too tightly in baseball and you swing, you're probably going to miss. And if you hit, if you connect, the ball isn't going to go that far. It's not going to be a good hit. The best batters in baseball, they hold the bat lightly. And when you hold the bat lightly, you can swing much harder. You're swinging for the fences. And usually the same thing applies in business and in strategy and in marketing. Especially when you hold the bat tightly and you're aiming carefully for that just perfect sweet spot. The campaign has to do X and Y and Z and, and you're holding the bat tightly, it's most likely going to be a fail. And the big home runs, even though you rewrite it later in history, the big home runs are much looser on the strategy. Much, much bigger swings come out of it. And so that's what we shoot for, is those, those big swings.

[B]

I love that. That makes a lot of sense. And what was it about the collider, what you created that's so special? What was it about that time that kind of made yum go? You know what we got to, we got to acquire this.

[A]

So first of all, I think two things. We're really, really focused on culture, on the, what we call the culture code of whatever category we're talking about. So we're talking about, you know, fast food obviously. Are you really, are you really doing research about what is in the consumer's mind and what the need that you're trying to fulfill is? And we said, look, most of that is irrelevant for marketing. Most of that is not really what you should be focusing on. You should be focusing on the culture of the category. Like what are people connecting to? What does this really represent in consumers lives? Skip on the rational stuff, skip on the deep insightful stuff. In the consumer's life it's important to look at, don't get me wrong. But the cultural stuff is where you're going to get your big wins. And that's really what connected we launched. The first thing that we did for them was Doritos Locos Taco. So they said, hey, we have this product, the Doritos Locos Taco. We think it's going to be a big success. What would you do from a campaign perspective? And we said, look, we would not talk about the Doritos Locos Taco at all. All we're going to do is we're going to talk about the fans of the Doritos Locos Taco. That's it. Your entire campaign is going to be about the fans of the Doritos Locos Taco. And. And, you know, it's kind of a bold move. This is a crazy innovation. You had taken a Doritos, turned it into a shell of a taco, and it was outstanding. It is delicious. You should try it if you haven't had it, because it's an actual Dorito shell. It's not dusting. It's an actual. It was a feat of engineering. It's like space shuttle, Doritos Locos Taco. And this thing, they really wanted to talk about it. I mean, it's an amazing thing. And we said, no, you're just gonna have one shot, a taco coming out of a Dorito bag. That's it. Everything else is going to be about the fans. And the whole point of it is you're creating qsr culture, you're creating buzz around. This had nothing to do with what consumer insight could there possibly be to come up with this innovation, do you know what I'm saying? But there is a big cultural reason to do it. Buzz excitement. And back then, QSR wasn't buzzy at all. So this was, I would say, probably the first campaign that was all about buzz, buzz, buzz, creating culture. And so that's what they really dug. They liked that it connected. And we did that in a few places around the world.

[B]

There's a real legacy to that, actually, because there's so. Particularly in America, I think it's quite an American thing. But the amount of buzz around fast food launches and some of the stunts they, you know, different chains do, there's a lot. And the social media engagement. I mean, my daughter Lilia is just obsessed with a number of fast food chains. And when there's a new source out, she'll be watching tiktoks of people que try it and what's their reaction? And, yeah, you know, she sends me a message whenever I'm over here to go, can you just go down and get this particular sauce for me? You know?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And. And there is a thing in culture with fast food now, but I didn't feel like, you know.

[A]

No, no, I mean, I tell you, I honestly tell you that there was. We used to do crazy launches with Pizza Hut back in the day. So pizza had some of that going on. So we did a stuffed crust pizza and the big New Yorker and there was interesting stuff and. But it wasn't at this level. 2010, what happened? The real story of how it all started is Kogi. Kogi was a Korean taco truck and Kogi started in la. And suddenly people got excited about food in a different way. Wait, food can be rebellious, Food can be cool, Food can be buzzy. Before that, foodieism was really way up here at the Michelin star restaurant. And it wasn't available to the masses and it wasn't a cool thing, really. It was just a snobby thing. Kogi really started the whole movement. And so when that Kogi truck started, it kicked off this entire shift where lower price food could be cool. None of the fast foods picked up on it. Except Taco Bell. Taco Bell. Especially with the launch. Well, it was with the launch of Live Moss and the Doritos Locos. Taco is when we queued right into that and we said, that is the space that we're going to own. We're going to jump right into that. We're gonna play along with the Kogi truck. We're gonna be that buzzy cool thing. And it took the other brands a few years to catch up, but it was a wild success.

[B]

Yeah, and you have this nice phrase in the book where you talk about food is fuel versus food is experience, which perfectly encapsulates that whole thing.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, that was right, that was true. And it's. You know, there's this interesting weird little book called Culture Code and it was a French guy, Rapel or something, but he talks about the code of the each category. And this is old book from the 90s or 80s. I don't know a lot of the things we completely disagree with, by the way, but it's just an interesting intersection. And he said food is fuel in the United States. And a cultural code never ever, ever changes in a category in a given country. It'll be like that for the rest of eternity. Which is completely wrong because of course I don't think he wrote it when the Internet was around. And the Internet changes a lot of things in a lot of countries. And so food. So what ends up happening is that Julia Childs realizes that American food culture is garbage. It's terrible. It's Horrible. Nobody knows how to cook. Women don't know how to cook. Men don't know how to cook. Nobody knows how to cook. They'd gone through the sexual revolution and it had turned into kind of a sham because what ended up happening is women had to work and they had to come home and cook. And it was a mess. And so out of that mess, people start creating. That's where the TV dinners are born. And all this Julia Child comes in and goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, there's a better way to do this. Food is not just fuel. Food can be delicious and tasty and interesting. And so she teaches America how to cook. She starts it off, and then from there it starts evolving. She kicks it off. There's this wonderful book, I think it's called Provence 1978. It's about Julia Childs meeting with key chefs in Provence for the summer. And that's where American foodism starts. And little by little it evolves. And then Michelin starts. Things start happening. High end chefs start happening. Anthony Bourdain comes around, big time cultural shift. And eventually it becomes really apparent that food is no longer fuel. Food is culture, food is excitement, food is rebellion. Food starts meaning all kinds of stuff. Especially in the U.S. i think maybe if you had a, a deeper cultural context, if you were in a country like, I don't know, France, where you have a thousand years of history around food, it wouldn't have shifted so quick. But the US has no history and so there was nothing to hang on to. So of course it shifts like the wind. Whichever way the wind blows, the culture shifts in the US and that's exactly how we end up with food as this sort of like, interesting experience. Yeah.

[B]

Now, talking about the book, it's, it's fascinating. You have this period at Yum. Of great success. I mean, talk about going, I think, 6 billion to 10 billion. Is that turnover so huge? You know, years of huge success.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And why did you decide to capture all that in a book? What kind of inspired that? You know, was it that you kind of wanted to record it or whether it was there no other book out there that sort of quite encapsulated the approach that.

[A]

Well, I think the official story is we have a lot of franchisees around the world. It's a huge system, 160 countries. And this is a great way to communicate with the franchisees and for them to understand that this is a valid approach to marketing. And so it's a way to internally influence everybody. That's the official story, the real story. Is that we're a bunch of marketing nerds. And we were like, dude, this is cool, let's write a book. And, and, and it was more the fascination out of like, what if we took Byron Sharpe and what if we. And then we started experimenting around world with all these things and we just got really into it and really excited about it. Truly marketing nerds. And yeah, I don't know. CEO of Yum was David Gibbs. He's a, you know, daring kind of guy. And he said, yeah, sure, go for it, whatever, it's great. You know, where. I don't know how many CEOs would have done that.

[B]

You, you co races, didn't you, with the CEO at the time?

[A]

That's right.

[B]

That's hugely credible.

[A]

Yeah, well, I mean he's also. They're both very bold. And so you, you come from a history of sort of bold, big swings, holding the bat lightly. That's what's nice about working here versus at a. Maybe some of the other clients that we had back then. Very, very cautious or execute very slowly.

[B]

But I mean, what struck me, what I loved about the book is it's. You have the theory clearly, but you have the practice examples as well. And I think that's a bit of magic because you tend to read books. Either there's, you know, Byron Sharp, very theoretical, or their sort of memoirs of, you know, looking back and almost tell the historical story. But you've got both in there, which is just absolutely amazing.

[A]

Yeah, that was the issue. I think the, the publisher was interested in the practical side of it. Then the editor later said, you know, what would be better is if we just had more memoir stuff. More like how I got to this part in my career. And I think, you know, Greg Creed, the CEO and I were like, man, I don't know. That's so interesting. We really like the marketing thing. So we just made it. And then they said, well, you could make it theoretical. Look at these other books. They're really theoretical and smart and they are successful. Or you could make it this sort of practical thing, but the theoretical book, it'll be. It'll be a little higher end. And we said, nah, that's not really what we want. So we ended up in this weird middle where there's clearly theory, but it's. This is how you put it into practice. This is how you put it in practice in a big country, in a small country. And we did that because it's what we deal with on a daily basis. We work with, you know, Thailand and we Work with a UK on a daily basis. And so you need how to put it into practice here, how to put into practice there.

[B]

Yes. And the framework is really simple as well. And it's instinctively right. I mean, I know when I read it, I was like, yeah, of course, you know that, that makes total sense, but I haven't maybe seen it in that way. But describe the kind of framework, the red framework, if you will.

[A]

So firstly, it was called the EDR framework, Ease, distinctiveness and relevance. And then somebody at a conference raised their hand and said, why wouldn't you just call it the Red framework?

[B]

Yeah, I love that.

[A]

You know, hit your head against the wall. Yeah, exactly. No, so what it is, is if you think about one extreme, you've got like a Douglas Holt and a Douglas Holt talks about how brands become icons and it talks about cultural relevance and, and what he says is absolutely true. Which is the best brands in the world have a confer, a sort of identity, a belonging to the. To its users. If you wear a Nike, you know, cool shoes, it says something about you. If you drive a certain car, it says every single choice you have says something about not who you are, but who you want to be and who you aspire to be and what group you want to belong to. That is true. I think every marketer can look at that and go, yes, I buy that. I get to a shelf, I reach my hand out and I go, do I really want to grab that pack? That's not who I want to be. That seems a little dorky. That's a little too old school. Ooh, this thing is cooler. Can I take a chance? So it's identity, right? Meaning. But then on the other hand, you've got a Byron Sharpe. And what Byron Sharpe says is absolutely true as well, which is, look, this game is about top of mind awareness. And if you can create top of mind awareness, it makes large groups of people slightly more likely to buy something. That's all marketing and advertising is slightly more likely to buy something. So they're both right. And we had examples in the system because we have, again, 165 countries where either one was working. We had ones where I would say Taco Bell was winning out of cultural relevance, right, With a Doritos Locos taco. And everybody was like, wow, I want. It's so cool, I want to be part of it. I wear a shirt. I, you know, that was cultural relevance. But then we had other markets where it was just incredible presence and cultural relevance. Probably a kfc. China was just super, super present. And it was, you know, the stores are everywhere, the ads are everywhere, it's unmissable. And so it's just becomes the automatic place that you go to. And so if both are true, how do you go around teaching it? You just like, well it depends what CMO is in the country. And some would be like big fans of cultural relevance. So we decided as to merge them because that's the truth. The truth is you have to have a base of top of mind awareness. But if you really are a good brand, you're going to have cultural relevance too as well. So it's a combination of those two. It's funny, we talked to Douglas Holt and, and we said, hey, you know, what do you think about Byron Sharp? And he said, Byron Sharp is wrong. You can print that. We didn't print it because we're not here to start a beef. But it was a but, but it's an interesting point. I don't think Byron Sharp is wrong. I know Byron Sharp is right. We have the data to prove Byron Sharp is right. But I also know Douglas Holt is right. I also know that, that it does matter if you aspire to belong to a group that the brand represents or you're ashamed of it, of course it's going to have an impact for a smaller number of brands. For the best top brands, for the base level brands out there, it's 100% how brands grow.

[B]

And I think some of the tension here is actually what, what Byron does and how brands grow is actually why brands have grown. And it's, it's kind of looking at the evidence, you know, they've got more, they've got true, true, true mental awareness. Right. But the sort of stuff you're talking about is how they grow in terms of how they get to that mental availability by being culturally relevant.

[A]

Yeah, that's true.

[B]

So I think some of it is the how versus the why.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean?

[B]

And that's where we get kind of like everyone gets kind of all knickers in a twist.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we spend very little time going through the theory in the books or whatever. What we do is really say, okay, if it is mental availability and it is cultural relevance, how do you do that?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And what we do is we say, you know, R is cultural relevance. But R, we also throw in there sort of a functional relevance which is your category, what we call category use occasions. You, you just got to be known for those category use, you got to have those category use occasions. But that big cultural relevance, then we also have ease is that middle part, which is easy to notice, easy to remember, easy to access. All those are critical. I mean, we had markets, to be honest with you, that maybe the brand wasn't at all culturally relevant, but it was so present that it was. Ease blew away everything. And that's, that's what we were talking about earlier. Adam Ferrier talks about, you know, when you have, you know, what is it? It's. What was it? It's because, isn't it action.

[B]

Yeah. Attitudes change. Attitudes change behavior. But actually behavior, behavior.

[A]

So behavior changes attitudes faster than attitudes change behavior. Exactly.

[B]

Which really puts it in. You think, oh, that's the. Yeah, that makes sense. If you experience something, you change how you feel, of course, because you can.

[A]

Handle those things in your mind.

[B]

You can convince people without trying it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, don't worry, you know, I would change your perception. Then you'll try it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, that's true. And I think a lot of that happened with, with the Doritos Locos Taco. I think people, a lot of people in the US heard about it in 2011 and, or 2012, whenever it was launched it and everybody wanted to try it because it was cool. And the advertising made it seem like it was the coolest thing since, you know, sliced bread. And so they did, they tried it. And what we saw, we saw all of our scores go up. I mean, we saw health scores go up. We saw likability scores grow up. We saw, you know, every single metric in the book went up. Metrics that were completely unrelated to the product because of that point. They went, they tried it, they experienced it. And of course they are now going to feel better about the brand not because they had a good experience, simply because they did it. And they have to sort of connect the dots in their mind and say, well, yeah, I wouldn't have done it if it were a bad company. You know what I mean? So anyway, there's marketing nerdism here. But.

[B]

But that's Daniel Kahneman thing, isn't it? Of course, if you're familiar with something, if you've experienced something, if it comes to mind, you will feel better about it. So bigger brands have create better feelings in people because of that, you know, the experience they've had. Yeah, it's just sort of one of those laws. And that's another thing I think with, you know, talk about bar and shop a lot, but you know, how brands grow versus behavioral science. But behavioral science is a toolkit to help, you know, to Help create the change that then ends up turning. Creating mental availability.

[A]

Yeah, that's right. That's right.

[B]

In the end of it. Yeah, yeah. Which is good. I want to touch on the ease for a second. So you've got, you know, relevance, ease and distinctiveness. And I think the relevance of distinctiveness, I think marketers will debate till the cows come home. Yeah, they probably spend most of their efforts in the relevance and distinctiveness box. But I think ease is like this untapped opportunity for most because, you know, whenever we sit and think about any other experience we have in our lives, it can be painful, it can consume experience can be really difficult. Right. But somehow when we get to our own brand, we just think it's amazing.

[A]

Yeah. But you know, I think when, when we first set out to sort of understand the state of marketing at Yum. And we went to all these different countries and met with all these different marketers, very few marketers had truly understood that ease was their job. They're like, no, no, I'm going to build this cool brand or I'm going to make this top of mind brand. Yeah, but what about, especially now with the digital tools, what about where you're distributed and what about how quickly you make the ordering? All that I believe is on your plate is how do you make that ordering process as quick, as easy, as seamless? The payment pro. All that is marketing. Back to the Adam Ferrier thing. All that is marketing. And so we realized that we needed to make it officially the part of marketers jobs. And, and look, the dirty secret is by far the most powerful thing that you can do in the world of marketing is increase ease. Yeah, yeah, that's it. If you can increase ease, it blows away any sort of cultural relevance, any sort of top of mind. Many people will argue top of mind is ease, but anyways. But physical availability blows away anything else, I would argue 100%.

[B]

And this is back to the Dan O'Connor idea of actually thinking is hard for humans.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

You know, and therefore you make it easy for someone to make the choice and then. Bingo.

[A]

Yeah, that's right. And so why wouldn't you put in the marketer's toolkit.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If you can. If your job is to increase sales by 10%, you can increase sales by 10% by beating your head against the wall and creating the coolest advertising campaign in history with the best agency in the world and struggle and maybe, maybe reach there. Or you can make your product 10% easier to get. And you got there.

[B]

Yeah, it's Kind of how Amazon prime is just insanely.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's just, you know, if I can avoid getting in the car, going down the road to pick something up from a DIY store, it can be there in a few hours. Just hitting a button and the payment process as well. It's spooky.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, you just press on it. It's like, Buy Now.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You expect to have to enter some details and it's just done.

[A]

Yeah. Whoa.

[B]

It's a bit too easy, isn't it?

[A]

Yeah. My chair broke at my home office, literally Saturday. I was sitting there and I hit the floor, it broke, and I opened up Amazon, of course, and I clicked Buy now, and it was delivered in two hours. Isn't that insane, too? So, I don't know. I guess I've seen an ad for Amazon at some point. Who cares? You know what I mean? Like, when it's that easy and that present in your life, of course, that's what matters more than anything. I think it's about.

[B]

Maybe about 10 years ago, I had this idea of. And I think Amazon did do a couple of years later, but the idea of having a panic button. So, you know, when you get home, you open the fridge.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And you're just not inspired.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You preload your favorite pizza from, you know, from the nearest pizza store and you just hit this button and it flashes.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it doesn't stop flashing until the pizza is there.

[A]

That's genius. Especially now with, like, connected fridges and stuff like that. Like a deal with Samsung that we should make. Yeah, we. We have. We, you know, we do have favorites and they. Those get, you know, in our. In, especially in the Pizza Hut app, we. You load your favorites and those get used quite a bit. Yeah. For that exact same reason, which is I literally can't think. Click, let's go. Exactly. Yeah.

[B]

And it's almost like choice paralysis as well. There's so many places you could go. And just having the salient one on your fridge, when you're in that moment, just, boom, hit it. Off you go.

[A]

Yeah. It's brilliant.

[B]

Pizza app's very good, by the way, actually.

[A]

Yeah, it is. You know. Yeah.

[B]

There's a little thing that tells you it's in the oven, it's with the dark driveway.

[A]

So. So the pizza app is great. And it's getting even better with, you know, the digital and technology at Yum has just gone leaps and bounds. There's now a huge part of Yum is digital and technology and the. The stuff that they're doing. Is just out of this world. It's all ease based. You know, these are smart people doing ease based things. That's going to matter more than marketing. The truth is, you know, you make your app easier to use, make it easier to buy, make it quicker to get, it's going to matter more than another $50 million thrown in advertising. Yeah, 100%.

[B]

I couldn't agree more on these point. And the distinctiveness as well, I think is something that as marketers we sometimes forget is the power of distinctive assets. Because connecting what you see on TV or experience online what you see in store is so powerful, isn't it? Because we overload with so many messages that making something that means we connect that brand, I think is incredibly important.

[A]

Yeah, that's another challenging one that we've had a, especially at first, we had a lot of marketers in love with the idea of everything had to be started from scratch and doing everything from new. And you know, in the end, what's the strongest, best, biggest assets that we have? We have case of KFC, 11 herbs and spices, the kernel finger licking good. The red and white stripes that still blows away anything out there. You know, it's top of mind, distinctive brand assets and they matter more than anything.

[B]

Well, back to Ehrenberg Bass, of course. They're the masters.

[A]

Yep. And that's also very, very true. So it always becomes a challenge, you know, those two things. The really interesting thing is that they fight and that's, that's where it gets sticky. So you have a brand where it's losing cultural relevance and now your assets feel really tired. Right. And so what do you do with those assets when they automatically recall something that's irrelevant? That's a tough thing.

[B]

That is a tough thing.

[A]

That's a really tough thing to do. And you know, sometimes you got to pull the plug on it. And we moved away from a great tagline that we had at Taco Bell. We had Think Outside the Bun, which was ranked globally as like the number 24th most recognized tagline in the world, even though it was only us. And we moved to Live Moss. But it was the same issue. It, it Think Outside the Bun connected back to too clearly to a Taco Bell that people thought was only a late night kind of stoner brand. And Liv Moss was a departure. Liv Moss allowed people to think of it a little bit in a different way. But it took a lot of money to get that Liv Moss up to where I think Outside the Bun already was. So that's a huge challenge.

[B]

And as you said, scary, compound creativity. You got to keep consistent with that for many years to get to a point where it's then outperforming where you were before. How do you sell that idea? And I love Livermouse. It's so easy and obvious. But how do you sell that in.

[A]

Well, actually, I was still at the agency and we pitched the idea to. Back then it was. David Novak was the CEO of Yum. And he fortunately was a copywriter. He started as a copywriter before going over to Pepsi and before becoming the first CEO of Yum. So fundamentally, he loved creative ideas and he just sort of got it. I think other people in the room did not get it. They were like, what's. What's with the maze? What's. You know what I mean? But got it right away, right? Of course. And of course, Greg Creed, instantaneously, he bled purple like I was Taco Bell, you know, big time. And so they dug it and David Novak got it right away and got excited. And, you know, that's the thing at Yum. Something like that at another company would have taken, I don't know, a year of pitching. It was 20 minutes. It was 20 minutes max. It was probably 10 minutes of like, hey, here's this cool thing. It's going to move us away from this late night thing. Cool. But wait a second. The other ones are 23rd most recognized tagline in the world. Yeah. But it connects back. What do you think? Ah, let's go for it. All right, done. And so, so, yeah, it's fun.

[B]

And also, like, even if you don't understand mass in terms of the words, it. It feels energetic. It does, like more, you know. And so it's funny, actually reminded me of I shot an ad in Colombia years and years ago. And with this very long drive from Bogota to Villa de Leyva up in the mountains where we were shooting and we were listening to Colombian radio. And the only bit I understood was the DJ in between would go mass musica. And then he just stuck in my head the entire trip. We just, every time we capture something on camera, we'd go mask musica as one. It became this kind of like, that's funny theme for the theme for the whole shoot. It's just mass musico but the energy about it. So I heard that. I was like, yeah, that.

[A]

There you go.

[B]

Yeah, there you go.

[A]

It's something about music, right? Yeah, yeah.

[B]

More music.

[A]

Yeah, that's right. Well, that's, that's the gist. I mean, obviously live it means more in Spanish, but But yeah, it just became a, you know, instantly recognizable tagline and you know, now it's all over culture fortunately and yeah, took us a while to get there, but it's there and it's exciting and good and you know, ethos of the brand kind of thing.

[B]

Now talking to Taco Bell and well, all your brands actually. Innovation must form incredibly important part of it into, you know, you're changing ranges all the time, introducing new things, you're trying things out. How do you kind of approach innovation? How do you know when you've got something that is going to work?

[A]

Well, first of all, I think the heads of innovation in the world of Yum are special people. They really, truly are. They're, they're not what you would expect to find and you wouldn't find somebody like this at Liz or Taco Bell, you know, at a normal company because they are creative powerhouses. Their brain is non stop production of ideas. And I mean, I'll sit in a test kitchen with Liz and you know, she'll put four things on the table. My mind's blown and she throws them all in the trash. No, let's try again. Let's try this and that. What? What? That was genius. Oh my God. But, but it's just like this constant. So, so first of all, innovation, you have to have the right mindset and the right mindset is somebody that is insanely creative. Creative. I don't think it's always like that. I think oftentimes you're looking at a consumer insight and somebody that's cautious and somebody that's thoughtful and somebody that's. But in a place like Taco Bell, place like fast food, I would argue anywhere, to be honest with you. I think creative powerhouses really drive the show. Now on top of that, especially at Taco Bell, but we've got incredible innovation at Pizza Hut and incredible innovation at KFC Global. My God. But what they do is that they never have one avenue of approach. It's never, hey, we've got, you know, five food experts and they're going to create a new taco or a new chicken sandwich. No, what they do is they invite in a group of outside chefs, they create a challenge for them, they create a special dinner for them, they make it a whole week long thing. And these are, you know, famous chefs. And then on the other hand you're doing innovation with a couple different innovation houses or we're bringing in a bunch of, you know, we do these two or three day sessions at Collider where we each Room is a different country of inspiration. You know, that sort of stuff. But they do five, six or seven different avenues at once. I'm not exaggerating. It is insane. They have something called Chef Ninjas on and on and on. They have different programs that are all running at once. And at any given moment, one strategy works and something comes out and everybody goes, ah, there it is. But. But it's never the same strategy. It's never. Oh, yeah, it always works with the Chef Ninjas. I'm probably getting that one right. It might be Food Ninjas, Chef name, something like that. It. Sometimes it works with that one. Sometimes it works when we do the session at Collider, sometimes it works on the internal kitchen, Sometimes it works because, you know, they took this incredible trip and they went to wherever. It's always a different thing that fires it out. So having that wide mindset is critical. And then from a marketing perspective, of course, this is where it gets challenging because we've talked about this. The, the, the Maya thing. You can go too far too easily, too quickly, and when you go too far, you lose it, or you can go not far enough and it's not interesting. So it's a constant struggle, balance.

[B]

I think the Maya thing I only. I came across about a year ago, actually. Dave Kaufman, who works at Meta, was telling me about it when they were developing Google Glass. I think he worked at Google before and he's developing the Glass and he said it broke the Myer principle because it was too advanced for people to on board. And then now they're now at Meta and now he's developing Ray Bans, so using Ray Bans to make the technology feel familiar. And so, you know, kind of most advanced yet acceptable kind of idea. And it's really truism about innovation. And in fact, John Kieran, that founded System 1, has this 8020 rule, which is quite interesting, where things need to be about 80% familiar and 20% new. So, for example, when Uber launched, the idea of getting into a stranger's car is crazy, right? You don't know the person. You know, you could. You could be kidnapped.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Yeah. So what they did is they overwent on. Here's the name, here's how far away the person is, here's the map, here's what the previous person gave as a review, you know, and all of that, you know, is designed to reduce the.

[A]

You know, the weird feeling. Yeah, I don't understand what this is.

[B]

Yeah, this is too dangerous. But actually, by making it familiar, you got the person's name and they've done X thousands of rise before with an average of 4.9 is all designed to bring that familiarity and make kind of acceptable which is interesting but it neatly actually connects back to. So I put some of your new product launches into our kind of system. One test to see how they did for sure got some pretty good scores. So this conversation could have gone a different way but all good. But I picked out the top four because I think it really actually lands the kind of 8020 rule and interestingly actually it kind of picked up on all you know, your three biggest brands. So what came out number one? KFC Original Recipe Tenders. It's again an interesting one isn't it? Because the association with KFC so much is the bucket but actually just pivoting very slightly and putting it, you know as a tender that smashed it got 5.8 star. The second one Pizza Hut Triple Treat box. I hadn't seen this one actually before but now I see it. It's so cool.

[A]

Yeah, it came out of one of the, I can't remember what country it was. I want to say it was oh, I can't remember if it was Taiwan that first created that about five, eight years ago. It's this cool tower of pizza boxes like drawers. Yeah. And it's so cool. But yeah, what's inside each one of those drawers is a pizza, some breadsticks, you know and a dessert. It's nothing crazy, it's nothing wild but it's a home run.

[B]

It's just like a refreshing and you know, just encouraging you to you know, get, get the three together. The third one interestingly actually which is also an interesting insight about price with KFC $5 bowls is actually price can be emotion emotive. I discovered this actually we work with a lot of grocery retailers in the UK and of course they're all the time they're testing price points and so we actually end up trying to test price points for emotional response and sometimes kind of delivering quality and value at the same time actually kind of can be quite a compelling thing.

[A]

You know what we found the secret with the $5 anything. Well in, in our case it started years and years ago with at KFC frankly they had a, a meal deals and everybody's got meal deal like oh there's you can get the number three or number two or number one. And what they did at KFC a few years ago is like what if we threw them all in one box and called it a five dollar box and everything was all Inclusive. So what is that? It is emotional or whatever, but it's primarily it's ease.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Because you walk in and you take the five dollar box. I'm done. I've got a drink. I've got a five dollar box. Five dollar box, five dollars. Everybody remembers that. Everybody did.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. You got to be careful not to get too tied to the price point with inflation.

[B]

But yeah, I think you're right. You know, you are right. It's the ease over the price in that situation that the price point is, is handy to remember because it's a round number.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But it's the ease that's actually, that's really interesting. The fourth one, probably my favorite actually, Taco Bell nacho fries came in with a 5.4 star as well, which just sounds delicious.

[A]

Yeah, you've chosen, you've chosen some of the strongest stuff that we have in. Yum. Yeah, nacho fries is great. So nacho fries, you know, a bunch of people here at Taco Bell had worked on them for years. Melissa Fribe, who's now cmo Pizza Hut, Us, I think, was one of the main architects of that. And they had tried fries for years and years and years because, I mean, how could you be fast food and not offer fries?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is that crazy? For 40, whatever. Five years they did not offer fries. And they kept on thinking, God, we need to launch fries. Need to launch fries. Greg Creed was always the guy that said, how does that make sense for Taco Bell? No, get out of here. He was totally right. Distinctiveness, right? He's totally right. The same thing. Creed, one time they came to him and said, look, ranch. Ranch sounds like crazy. It sounds like crazy. What do we do? How do we get there? Nope, nope. I'm not buying Ranch. This is a Mexican inspired food. What? Ranch? And then finally somebody from the innovation team said, what if we put some avocado in it and called it Avocado Ranch? Done. Sold. Boom. Number one. Right. Well, the same thing happened with fries. They wanted to launch fries. And then Melissa, I'm sure, or Liz came in and said, well, what if we call it nacho fries and we use, you know, some of the nacho spices and in the breading on it is going to be, you know, not just the typical stuff, but it's great, done and it's a huge success. It's wild. And the biggest point, you don't dip it in ketchup. You dip it in nacho cheese and it's to die for.

[B]

It's so good.

[A]

It's so good.

[B]

Yeah. Back to 80, 20, right? You're taking AP. That's familiar. It's a familiarity with the brand with a little twist. What happens when it goes wrong? I'm sure with the amount of innovations you do, you must have the odd one that goes.

[A]

Yeah, so, so here's a, here's one that I, I, I'm sure it's okay to talk about because I'm trying to think of breaking news if the responsible parties can track me down and get angry at me. But it was about 10 years ago, and we knew nuggets were a big deal. And obviously in fast food, right? Taco Bell, you know, it's the same thing as ranch and the same thing as, as, as anything else or as, as fries. Like, what does Taco Bell have to do with that? And so what they did is they said, well, nuggets, I know what we can do. Let's squish the nugget down, and let's make it flat, and let's make it triangular into the shape of a nacho fry, right? A piece of tortilla that's fried. In case your listeners don't know what a nacho fry is. But, and so it would be a flat piece of chicken that's breaded and fried in a triangle. It was delicious. And it was a complete failure because that was 80, 20 the wrong way. Wait, wait, it gets better. Then we called it naked chicken chip.

[B]

Oh, that's a thought in my head. I didn't.

[A]

Naked chicken chip. What on earth is a naked chicken chip? So, yeah, of course you swing. You swing wildly. There was a creative in Argentina that I used to love, and he said, look, marketing and advertising is a tennis game. And in a tennis game, when you lob it right down the middle of the court, nice and slow, safe place. Nobody's going to say anything. Nobody's going to lean in. Nobody's going to go, ooh, ah. When you hit that ball hard and fast and it goes right on the line, that's when the crowd goes crazy. And that's your job as a marketer. Your job is to get the crowd to go crazy. But sometimes you're going to go over the line and you got to have that safety. It's okay. Nobody got fired for naked chicken chips. It was a lot of money, I'm sure, but there's a lot of innovations that don't work. But that's just the culture that you have to create, like swing, big swing for the fences, or in this case, you know, hit that ball down as hard and as fast as you can right at that line. It's okay if you go over. If you're not comfortable doing that, you shouldn't be in the world of marketing, or you shouldn't be in charge of marketing, or you shouldn't be a CEO that's commenting on marketing. You need to be able to aim that ball as hard and as fast on that line and sometimes go over.

[B]

That's a brilliant analogy.

[A]

Isn't it great?

[B]

Is it great spot on you. Right. Because that's where the tension is. That's where the, you know, the engagement is. Is. Yeah, like I say, right on the line. Yeah, that's really good. You know, a lot of. A lot of innovations has to. Obviously, you know, you're working within the brand frame. It's a kfc, right. You know, so much history, so many associations. You know, you can't go too far out the line. But I was really fascinated by KFC Source or sourcy by kfc. So that's probably a bit of an innovator's dilemma here. What do you do when you kind of like, need to innovate for the brand, but it's stretched, it's taking you possibly outside that line?

[A]

Yeah. So Saucy is a really interesting one. We have two of those kind of things going on right now. We have more in other countries, but Saucy for kfc. And we have a live Moss cafe, which is a drink concept for Taco Bell in San Diego. Both of those. And that's a little bit of like, look, take the shackles off. Let's. Let's pretend there's no rules. You're your own brand manager. You report to nobody. And literally, by the way, that's how we set it up. People report to nobody. They can do whatever they want.

[B]

Literally Nobody.

[A]

Literally. Well, they report to David Gibbs, of course, but David Gibbs wants everybody to swing big, so he's not going to stop. Really. He won't stop anything. He's like, look, if it's a big swing, go for it. And in the case of Saucy, it's Christophe Poirier, who used to run KFC France, did a great job. Then he was Pizza Hut Global cmo. And then they said, why don't you just, let's try something crazy, let's try something wild. And. And they did this Saucy concept out in, in Orlando. And. And yeah, you, you can, you can break the rules. And just to experiment, just to see what happens. Which way does it go? What Happens. How do people react? What does the brand do? And, and it's a really interesting. We're, you know, we're excited and hopeful for it, but yeah, it's a big departure. Right. Because there's pink in there. It says Saucy by kfc. So it's still connected to kfc. It could be a sub brand. It's an experiment and it's, it's a lot of fun.

[B]

Yeah. And describe it for anyone who hasn't come across it yet.

[A]

Yeah, so. So Saucy by kfc. What, what it is is a. It's a beautiful restaurant. It's just a single concept right now, or single restaurant. But what it is is, imagine that it's a glass, lots of plants, super cool. Pink feels very Gen Z. It's got a little splash of KFC in there. It's got some KFC colors, it's got 11 herbs and spices. It's got a few elements of KFC in there. But it's a big departure. As a matter of fact, we said the brief to the creatives was what if the colonel's granddaughter took over? That's exactly how we briefed the creatives. And this is the concept they came up with, which was Saucy by kfc. Well, we actually created the name ourselves. But what they sell is chicken strips, tenders and sandwiches and dips. And the saucy is 11 back to the 11 herbs and spices. It's 11 different sauces and they're just way out there sauces. Some are close in, some are far out. To hit that 80, 20, that's probably about the ratio, by the way, if I think about the percentage of saucies that are way out there and the percent of sauces that are way in. So we've got ranch, I think we call it ranch something, but we've also got crazy, you know, lemongrass, whatever.

[B]

But you need that for the virality, don't you? For people to go, oh my God, I came here and look what, you know, look what I tried.

[A]

Yeah. And it's also, also just. Just delicious, you know. And so you've got just a very few items. We have saucy soirees Friday nights get together that we bring in new artists and have really cool events. Fills up with new artists and by colleges. It's a very cool concept. It's a lot of fun.

[B]

And what's the plan? Is it test it and then roll out if it works or to apply the.

[A]

Everything's on the table right now. Yeah, everything's on the table. But for now it really was sort of a brainchild of, of, you know, David Gibbs, of saying, hey, what if we tried something new and tried something different and didn't have any shackles and let's test and learn and see what happens. You know, which I think is an important part of, isn't it? I don't think a lot of companies do that, but I think it's cool.

[B]

It's really important cultural insight as well, isn't it? I mean in terms of inside you, I'm giving permission to go and do that is enormous, isn't it? Because in a normal organization that would never happen. Yeah. Because there'd be 18 months of procedure and process and sign off and alignment with stakeholders that kind of say that. I mean it's classic university dilemma, isn't it? The best way to innovate some when you're outside the 8020 is to kind of create a separate team that give them permission to go create.

[A]

Yeah. So that is. Yeah. Innovators dilemma.

[B]

Right?

[A]

And it's exactly right. Innovators dilemma. You know, we had a professor, we brought in a professor to talk at Yum. We had a little event for leaders at Yum that we did in L. A over two or three days collider. We put these sort of like we call them rumbles that are two or three day rumbles where we sit down with key people and we bring in speaker after speaker after speaker after speaker. Speaker. It's just crazy amount of speakers. Anyways, one of the speakers was a professor from Harvard, Scott Anderson. And he came in and said, look, the main problem in companies is that you have the ghost of the past, ghost of the present and ghost of the future. These three ghosts. And they're ghosts because you can't see them, you can't recognize them, is they force you to act the way you've always acted. Well, we tried that in the past. Is the ghost of the past and it didn't work. Or ghost of the present. No, no, no, that's not the way we do things here. Or ghosts of the future. Well, what do you mean if I don't have this, who will I become? And so these three ghosts control your decisions. Your challenge is to break free from those three ghosts. And how do you do that? Is usually you create a separate structure with what we would call, or at least I call a cultural rebel. And that has to be somebody that is an out there thinker and is rebellious by nature and is a disruptor by nature and won't Follow rules by nature. And those, those guys are gold. You can't have too many, I think, in a company or the company implodes. Yeah, but. But you need a few.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And, and they can get rid of the ghosts or they can avoid the ghosts.

[B]

I mean, I mean, this won't surprise you, given I'm coming from the uk, but when I chatted to Meg Farren a couple of years ago.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

On the podcast about her, you know, in fact, she was just about to take over as general manager, I think, for the uk, having been the cmo.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And she, she talks about the, you know, the chicken shortage, which is just the most crazy scenario.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, KFC ran out of chicken in the uk and within, I think within hours she'd gone out there with the fck. Apology.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which, I mean, that's brave, right? Because it is. I can imagine a lot of people must have looked that and got really. Yeah.

[A]

You know, the funny thing is about a lot of great stories about Meg. Meg is great. But the interesting part is that she didn't get a single approval. Like she did anything. She did it all herself. And she worked with the agency Mother London, I'm pretty sure. And they just came up with this idea and they ran with it and Yeah, I think there was a lot of late night calls going, oh, oh, wait a second.

[B]

What just happened?

[A]

Wait, I don't know if we should. Oh, you already launched it, I see. Oh, okay. Well, that's interesting.

[B]

And, and I'd love to be there.

[A]

You know, there was no complaints, interestingly, but they were ready for complaints and you know, the system was ready for, hey, this is. Somebody that's brilliant is going to take a chance and we're going to back them up. And. And Meg is now president of Taco Bell us.

[B]

There you go. Well, that says a lot.

[A]

It says a lot.

[B]

That says a lot.

[A]

That's the point. It's like when you take chances.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, you got to have a good hit rate too.

[B]

You know, we're also perhaps your copywriting, you know, that you talked about earlier, that was brilliantly copywritten. And so when you read that, it was very empathetic to the situation. It was really, really brilliant. I mean, the headline was obviously dead catch your attention, but actually copy was.

[A]

Yeah, it was brilliant.

[B]

It was very well done.

[A]

It was an interesting. It was just a terrible situation. 900 stores, no chicken.

[B]

I mean, the franchisees must have been.

[A]

Oh, my God. It was, it was, it was. I don't think people slept for you know, a solid three months. It was not a fun time in Yum history. But. But, man, talk about creating a powerful team structure, culture, excitement and fixing a problem. People really came together. It was amazing to watch.

[B]

Yeah, that's pretty awesome. What'd you pick as your kind of favorite moments, if you look back in Yum history? Yeah, yeah. The big. The things that maybe have surprised you.

[A]

All, certainly the Doritos Locos. Taco is great, but I would say where we are right now, both on the Taco Bell, on the US Side with some. Some big swings and big transitions and this desire. Well, that you're part of this whole session right now too, which is we want big bats. And it just is the. It's electric, you know, it's exciting. It's electric. People are willing to take big swings and it just feels like there's so much opportunity just floating there in the air. And people, all they're doing is empowering you. That's why Sauce. It's no coincidence that in this culture, Saucy is created. Le Moss Cafe is created. Got a bunch of stuff coming out with Taco Bell. Got a bunch of stuff coming out with KFC on the global side. In the US Side. Pizza Hut's got stuff in the hopper. So it's just a moment of excitement.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. It's just fun to be part of it. As a marketing nerd and as a creative and somebody that likes to have exciting times. This is. It just feels like right now is electric, more electric than it's ever been. And it's always been kind of fun, you know, seriously fun. Yeah.

[B]

I mean, they're great brands to work on. Yeah, there's a lot to work with there.

[A]

But.

[B]

But I mean, pivoting just a little bit because I wanted to talk about what your approach as a CMO is that because you're leading enormous organization, global, many, many markets, you know, you've got people making decisions locally versus centrally. So how do you manage the kind of your role as.

[A]

Okay, so that's an interesting point. So that's a really interesting point. Each CMO is entirely independent. Back to taking big swings and having things. So Val on the. Val Kvisniak is. Is leading KFC Global. She reports literally to nobody except the CEO of kfc. We don't have dotted lines. We let people run with their own. Because if you are operating an organization this size through a committee, you're going to end up in a bad, bad place. And so each CMO has their own independence, and each CMO in the country has a lot of independence to. Way more independence than you would at a multinational where they've got to report back to headquarters and headquarters is going to say no because the copy point B says see? And it's. So none of that happens. And so there's a lot of independence in the world. So more than anything, it comes down to smart. Heart and courage is what we call. It's our culture and it's a belief system within the world of yum. Smart. You, you, you're making smart strategic choices. Heart, you're doing the right thing for the people, for the planet, for all stakeholders involved. And then courage, you're taking big chances. And so it's about creating the culture and having a loose structure. It is not the other way around. It is not a very tight structure where you've got multiple reporting lines and then there's a little culture splashed in. This is the other way around. It is smart, hard and courage first. And then we got a little bit of a loose structure that, by the way, we can break as necessary.

[B]

Yeah, that's really smart. I get that. Because then you feel ownership.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

There's nothing worse than thinking I'm just a pawn in the game here and I just have to do what exactly says. Yeah, you know, you're much more likely to care, take the jumps that you've talked about and also care about the execution. Because once you have ownership, once, you know, once, you know, responsibilities pushed down, you know, in that sense, you can't mess it up then because it's on you.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Whereas when it's been given to you, like, well, it's just head office. What do they know?

[A]

Yeah, that's right.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

100% dedicated responsibility. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that when Meg launched that fck ad, you know, she launched it and she probably didn't sleep that night. And she was, you know, many gods and the phone. But it was, it was on her and she felt that responsibility. It wasn't. It wasn't on head office, it was on her. And that was exciting and, you know, career enhancing and personally enhancing and. Yeah, that's right. It's ownership. You do have ownership and responsibility.

[B]

And building on that, what would you say kind of the main, you know, markings of a great cmo, what are the kind of things that really set apart the successful ones within the organization?

[A]

Yeah, the. The truth is, if the CMO is not leading through ideas, then it's never going to work. And what do I mean by that? I mean that a c a true CMO in my book is somebody that can ident, doesn't have to author the idea, but can identify a good idea and champions that idea and runs with that idea and breaks down barriers with that idea. It's an idea driven individual. That's what I think. There are CMOs out there that are political or maybe they're more about organization, more about culture, which I just said. Culture is important, but the culture is important in order to empower a CMO to be an independent thinker and to have that vision. If you don't have the vision, don't be a cmo. That's really the key. If you're just going to come in here, political, you know, whatever move, it's not going to work. Our best CMOs, Taylor, Taco Bell, you know, I can name every single one right now across the board is going to be idea driven. They're going to. They're going to. If you have a conversation with them in an elevator, they're going to. They're going to. They're going to shout about their ideas. They're going to. It's going to be loud, it's going to be obnoxious because they're going to be is super excited about an idea that they're championing. And so that's the primary thing. You have to be idea driven and not everybody is. And you should, in my book, you shouldn't be a CMO if you're not idea driven. Maybe it's because I came from creative or maybe I came from the agency side, but it is about idea driven. Secondly, I think you need to create a culture of courage and driving that courage and pushing that courage and emboldening others. And then third, I would say that there is a left brain part of this equation. I mean we just talked about Red and how nerdy that book is, but, but it is, you know, if you don't know the Byron Sharps and the Douglas Holtz and the Adam Ferrier and if you haven't read the books and if you don't study how human mind works and you don't know who can Kahneman is, then then it, it's a problem because the answers of how to change people's opinions and convince people are there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So you've got to have that left side of the equation. So it's a weird mixture, right? You're idea driven but you're also, hey, you're powered by the smart stuff.

[B]

Well, that's what makes the ideas work, isn't it because the ideas are always in the context of changing a consumer behavior and delivering a vision or a goal you have as an organization. It's combining those things together.

[A]

Right, exactly.

[B]

And the marketer has to connect those dots. If one of those things isn't working, you're going to go off on that. You have a great idea that destroys the business.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, if it's not rooted in a consumer truth or consumer behavior and aligns the goal of the business.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The market is always trying to balance those things out.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, that's right. And you can be too left brain. And if you're too left brain, then it doesn't work because you can be like, wait, is this. There was a great. Jack Hinchcliffe. Right now he's the CMO of Habit, our fourth brand that we just acquired a few years ago. And I think you probably know Jack.

[B]

Yeah, no Jack. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

KFC uk. Jack has a line that I think one of his agencies gave him. He said when you evaluate creative, first thing you look at is creative and it's like, do you feel something? Is it and you're excited about it. The second thing is, is it on strategy? And then the third thing is, does it matter if it was off? Isn't that smart?

[B]

I like that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We do tie ourselves up, don't we?

[A]

Do.

[B]

Well, it didn't precisely meet, you know, the 14th bullet point in the brief.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

But it's bloody good.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Oh, yes.

[A]

And being in this position, I see a lot of briefs and a lot of post rationalized stories which I know are wrong. I know that's not how it actually happened. Somebody swung big for the fences with a creative idea that they fell in love with or a crazy concept that they fell in love with or a crazy product that they fell in love with. Was it on strategy? No. Yeah, it wasn't on strategy, but it didn't matter. They took that. So that's why I'm saying you can be too controlled by the light left. Then later, of course, then they wrote the fe. Or wrote the case study or told or told their boss about it. Suddenly it was on stress.

[B]

Genius.

[A]

But the truth is, yeah, I think, I think you can be. That's probably my main complaint, if you will, or my main thing that I'm cautious of is people that are too far on the left side of the equation when it comes to marketing, actually. Yeah.

[B]

You trigger something. I think there's a pragmatism about being a CMO as well that can hold lightly, I guess the bat, in a way.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That stretch the analogy a little bit there because you could be theoretically slightly wrong, but absolutely right from a business sense. And you need to know when to let go of the sort of the right answer a little bit for the sake of a brilliant idea rather than stick to the right answer and end up with an average idea that's not going to turn.

[A]

Yeah, that's right.

[B]

And that judgment is super important. I see people getting really anxious and tied up, basically. It's not totally aligned with the theory.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then you realize, you know, the pragmatism about just, you know, the instinct to put it all together is, is key.

[A]

Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, you don't even have to go very far to find cases, post it notes. That's. That was supposed to be a glue, right? Yeah. Didn't work and it was a failure. And I mean, endless stories of these that, that you had set out to do X and then you realized that you discovered Y or you had created a strategy that had to be, you know, connect with the consumer at this level. But then suddenly you discovered a much bigger idea. I think if you're too, too far left brain controlled, you'll kill it and you'll go back to this and you'll end up in that, you know, boring mid. But if you've got a little bit of, you know, courageous in you, a little bit of rebellious in you, you'll say, you know what, that's a better idea. Let's go. I'll rewrite the case later.

[B]

The other thing I learned actually along the way linked to that is you're better off getting the idea out the door quickly, seeing how it does, learning from that. And if you need to tweak, tweak it. Right. Or doubling down next is working. Whereas I've seen so many organizations where they're in search of perfection, they spend so long on it, the competitors out there, way ahead of them, and then they end up losing just because they're waiting forever to get the perfect answer.

[A]

Yeah. So back, I won't say the name of the client, but we had a frozen food client reach out to us and say, hey, would you guys like to work? Sure, sure, sure. They had a really big brand that was, it was, it was a lower calorie option. And so they said, help us kind of position it. And we said, well, you know, the culture around, you know, women and eating, it's really turning into more about strength and not so much about skinny. Anyways, it took them Several years to get that out the door. Not that they had to change the product, just the campaign. And by the time they launched it, that was kind of on the way out, you know, and so, so, yeah, we, we, we absolutely agree with that. The best of our marketers will swing big and swing fast and get it out there and guess what? It fails. Do it again. Yeah, that's the nice thing about qsr, by the way, which I admit is easier than packaged goods. QSR, you have 10 swings a year, or 12 swings. These are our windows, our advertising windows. You have 10 swings. It didn't work in January. Okay, don't worry. Mid February, you're going to have another swing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, it didn't work. Don't worry. You have another one in March. Oh, home run. Great. Now you found your gist. You know, and so that's the nice thing about QSR is that we do get multiple swings. I know that if your package goods.

[B]

Most likely, but even in packaged goods, you can find a way to wrap a prototype, test it in a small market.

[A]

I mean, that's right.

[B]

In the uk, we often use like Northern Ireland, for example, as you go and launch it in a local retailer there, see if it works and roll it out, you know.

[A]

Yeah, that's true. And we do, by the way, we do exactly the same thing. We've got tens of thousands of restaurants around the world. We're constantly testing every kind of crazy idea that you could put possibly imagine in one or two or 10 or 15 of those restaurants.

[B]

So, yeah, we do that anytime you can be tested.

[A]

But I mean, even with full marketing effort, full campaign, spending a chunk of your money, we still have 10 swings a year. So that's kind of the unique thing, is that. Okay, well, I'm going to go big and I'm going to try it in February with the whole thing with I'm going to do tv, I'm going to do social, I'm going to do out of home, I'm going to do product, I'm going to do store. Oh, that was okay. It didn't quite work. Let's try something else for February. You know, that's kind of cool.

[B]

I don't have to call this podcast. Hold it lightly and swing big.

[A]

There you go.

[B]

That's the kind of theme through this, isn't it?

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Ken, it's been amazing to talk, mate. Thank you so much for sharing so much wisdom in there, you know, from, from your time and, and big call out for your book as well.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Brilliant. So, yeah, go and order it on Amazon Prime. Get it in a few hours.

[A]

Well, thank you for coming. Thank you for, for, for doing this podcast. I love the podcast, by the way. I think you're brilliant. I think it's fun, funny, entertaining. It's always like, goes by so quickly when you're, you're, you know, in these conversations. And thanks, man.

[B]

I really appreciate it. That's what I try and do. So cool. Thank you, mate.

[A]

All right, thanks a lot.

[B]

Thank you very much for listening or watching Uncensored cmo. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcast. If you're watching, hit subscribe there as well. I'd also love to get a review. Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show. So please do leave a review wherever you get your podcast. If you want to contact me, you can do. I'm over on XenSoredCMO or on LinkedIn where I'm under my own name, John Evans. Thanks for listening and watching. I'll see you next time.