Niamh Carroll’s Post

Expanding the occasions your brand is relevant to is a powerful way to drive growth. That's why KFC UK & Ireland's announcement last week really caught my eye. 🍗 ➡️ 🧋 The fast-food chain is launching a new speciality drinks brand 'Kwench by KFC', selling products like boba, shakes and iced coffees, with a Gen Z audience in mind. In the QSR industry, expanding into new dayparts and occasions is crucial for sustained growth. Greggs has driven later opening hours to become more relevant to evening meals, coffee chains like Starbucks have created drive thrus to catch the on-the-go consumer, Wagamama has even started a breakfast menu at some locations. KFC has been at it too, introducing rice bowls to give consumers a healthier option. But with the best will in the world, there's only so many occasions fried chicken can play a role in. That's where the new Kwench brand comes in. The chain wants to get to a stage where it is bringing people through the doors specifically for its speciality drinks, thus opening the door for KFC to play a role in far more consumers occasions than before. But KFC is, of course, famous for chicken, and getting the brand to a stage where it comes to mind in drinks occasions will be its main task if the initiative is to drive real growth. “Right now, today, when people think of KFC, people don’t think of drinks,” KFC's Leo Sloley told me. “Actually, the biggest challenge we have here is around changing perceptions, changing habits.” It'll be a long-term journey for the brand, and one worth watching to see whether this chicken giant can become famous for drinks too 🧋 Read the full Marketing Week story linked below ⬇️