Does Your CX Have the Meats?
We all love a guilty pleasure. From reality TV to Britney Spears to a 1am trip to your favorite fast food restaurant. Maybe you enjoy all three of those! There’s nothing wrong with that and here at Often Imitated we will always be team #FreeBritney.
What all of these have in common is that they form consumers' experiences and emotions into creating lasting memories. No one understood that more than Pete Harman when he coined the phrase “Finger-Licking Good!” for KFC except maybe today’s guest. In this episode, we’re speaking with Bob Kraut and he has been the mastermind behind all of your favorite guilty pleasures. As the former CMO of Arby’s, Pizza Hut, and Captain D’s, he has revolutionized the way we as customers interact with fast food. Today, he’s the CMO of Billy Jealousy and will help us get our brands locked into the minds of our customers. So pull through that drive through, click play, and enjoy!
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“The key to excellent customer experience is to create behaviors and experiences for customers that build memories.” - Bob Kraut
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Time Stamps
* (0:00) Finger-licking good CX
* (6:45) Background on Bob's extraordinary career
* (8:35) Promising a great CX and how to follow through
* (12:04) How Bob revolutionized Arby's
* (15:00) How your brand outweighs your product
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Sponsor
This podcast is presented by Oracle CX.
Hear more executive perspectives on CX transformation at Oracle.com/cx/perspectives
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Links
Bob: And action.
Ian: In the small TV studio, a crew stands around a living room, set, a younger man walks to the front of the living room and looks directly into the camera. Behind him is an older gentleman sitting in an armchair. The young man excitedly promotes two for one chicken deal that is happening that weekend behind him.
A well-dressed woman appears and hands the older man, a bucket of chicken. Hmm. This lights up the older gentleman. He begins eating, licking his fingers in the process.
This older man was Pete. He loved being on TV every week, he would go to his local TV station to film an ad for his franchise chicken re. Until one fateful day, which changed his life forever. He had a stroke, which limited his ability to speak as a result. Harmon got his manager, Ken Harbo to voice the ads while he remained in the background for the commercials cut the commercial wrapped and Pete and Ken walked back to the control room while putting on their coats, the telephone ring.
A producer answered. Hello. She nod and looked over at Pete concerned. The producer explained that a viewer was distraught over the way that Pete licked his fingers. Pete looked down at the floor, a little embarrassed. He just loved his chicken restaurant more than anything. And the thought of him tarnishing, his reputation was mortified.
When Ken saw his boss's dejected reaction, he spontaneously replied well it's finger looking good. Everyone in the control room laugh, especially Pete and the phrase, it just stuck with him little. Did he know he had just had another life changing moment.
To tell you the truth. The phrase was a bit shocking and a bit weird. Their chicken was finger looking good that evening. Pete continued to play the scene over and over in his head. He stopped by the restaurant. And for the first time he noticed that many of his customers, both men and women. Young and old were licking their fingers too.
He pulled out a pen and paper and decided to write a letter to the head of the franchise. His friend, Colonel Sanders. One of the most famous marketing campaigns in history was about to be born from a unique, relatable, and a little bit gross customer extreme. So today we are talking about creating those memorable slogan worthy customer experiences.
So sit back and order a bucket of chicken. Relax. I promise I won't judge you. You can like your fingers. Cute.
Mackey: Welcome to often imitated a podcast about remarkable experiences from the past and how they inspire people to create great customer experiences. Today. This episode is all about creating memorable experiences.
How KFC turned a unique customer experience into an iconic marketing slogan and how CX leaders today can create behaviors and experiences for customers that build memories. In this episode, we'll hear from Bob CRO, former CMO of captain DS, Papa Johns and Arby's and current CMO of Billy jealousy about how he and his teams created brands that built memories for their customers.
Often imitated is brought to you by the generous support of our friends at Oracle. Make every interaction matter with Oracle advertising, NCX connect all your data and empower your entire business to deliver exceptional customer experiences from acquisition to retention and everything in. Hear more executive perspectives on CX transformation@oracle.com slash CX
Ian: in 1939. Harlan Sanders started making fried chicken for people in Corbin, Kentucky located on the side of the highway, Sanders excelled at making chicken for hungry travelers, and to put it, frankly, people were obsessed spend years perfecting that now infamous fried chicken recipe. And calling the restaurant, Kentucky fried chicken.
In fact, in 1950, Harland Sanders was given the honorable title of Colonel by the governor of Kentucky and the legend of Colonel Sanders started to grow. He ultimately had to close that original Corbin restaurant as interstate traffic had changed. So in 1950, At the age of 62 years old, Colonel Sanders put his efforts into franchising, the business, and he reportedly used his social security checks to feel growth.
Now, an essential component of what made KFC so special was at the time these 11 herbs and spices that were added to the chicken. And he franchised that secret recipe. In fact, the colonels recipe was so popular. They kept it sealed in a. As a result, part of the experience of eating Kentucky fried chicken was not only eating the chicken, but eating those herbs and spices left on your fingers.
While the visual was shocking to some, it also proved the recipe was so good that people would go as far as to abandon their social graces, Kentucky fried chicken, sold an experience of a taste. That was so incredible. You'd forget those darn Manders. When Pete came, Colin, Colonel Sanders
loved the slogan. Aside from promoting the taste of the chicken. It was just memorable. Since it pushed the boundaries of etiquette, more people would pay attention. And in the following months, finger licking good became the company slogan and was used in all advertisements before Kentucky fried chicken was a great restaurant with great chicken, but after.
It was elevated to a brand with a distinctive and self-aware personality and the franchises took off by 1964. There were over 600 Kentucky fried chicken franchises, and finally Colonel Sanders sold his stake in the company for 2 million and stayed on to remain as spokesman.
And at the age of 72, who can blame. Colonel Sanders was an iconic personality and marketer. And our guest today understands the importance of building a distinctive brand. That creates memories. Bob crowd is a former CMO of several iconic brands.
Bob: Yeah, I'm a career CMO. Um, I worked for general motors for many years and then transitioned into the restaurant business. And I was the head of marketing at pizza hut. Arby's where I did a turnaround. Uh, I was the global CMO of Papa John's pizza, responsible for 5,000 locations and marketing the brand worldwide.
And then I recently, uh, helped a company, uh, find new ownership. Uh, captain DS, which is a fast casual seafood restaurant. And now what I'm doing is, uh, I have my own consulting business and I serve on multiple boards.
Ian: Bob is an extraordinary marketer, one of the masterminds behind a ton of the most memorable ad campaigns.
You've seen like the RBS, we have the meets, which we will discuss later in the episode. But as a CMO, he understood how important it is to market an accurate customer
Bob: experience. The opportunity, I think lies in the ability to deliver what you promise, uh, on a consistent basis. And then also surprising your customer with, uh, extra care and extra support.
Now I have a few statistics I can share, uh, a totally satisfied customer. Contributes about three X, uh, at much three X times revenue as a somewhat satisfied customers. And then when you compare a fully side aside customer to one that's dissatisfied, it's 14 times. So that's a powerful reason why it's important.
Ian: Colonel Sanders finger licking, good promised, and experienced. So tasty that you dare lick your fingers after eating. But in order to effectively market such an experience, you must be able to deliver the goods. Bob agrees that CXS role is to deliver on that promise.
Bob: The other thing is, uh, what we have in marketing is a phenomena called the leaky bucket.
Uh, sometimes you lose customers at the bottom of the bucket, and then you constantly have to refill the top with new customers. That is not a great, uh, business proposition for a company because acquiring a new customer costs roughly seven times as much as maintaining an existing one. So, uh, investing in your current customers, uh, is a real payoff and company seen positive results with, and then finally, um, you know, today consumers are not really relying on traditional sources of information, such as advertising nearly nine out of 10 don't trust advertising anymore.
And they depend upon word of mouth and third party validation. So the more customers that you can turn into advocates and zealots is the better cause that word's gonna get around and it's gonna enhance reputation of your brand. In
Ian: theory, aligning your CX and marketing sounds simple. Maybe not so simple, but it really has its challenges.
Bob: You know, one of it is, uh, one of the things to keep customers satisfied is to guarantee their experience and guarantee the quality of the product and, uh, what you do to, to measure this. In some instances, especially in the restaurant business is you have this concept of mystery shoppers. Uh, people, uh, a company that you hire, they go in and they pose as customers.
And they, uh, basically tell us through a survey what their experience was like. And importantly, they order in our case as a, actually ordered a pizza, uh, and they, they took photographs of that pizza and they sent it to the home office where we actually had a mapping program. Based on the imagery of that pizza, we were actually able to map it to a, an ideal point model of what the ideal pizza should be coming from Papa John's.
And then, uh, we rated that on a scale of one to 10. And if you were seven and below, you got a letter from the CEO of the company. To the pizza operator in again, in the restaurant business, uh, most of the stores and most of the businesses are operated through franchisees. So that was a way to give them information and provide them feedback.
Ian: While marketing may get the customer in the door, a distinctive experience keeps the doors
Bob: flowing, you know, marketing traditionally in the restaurant business is that, uh, marketing generates demand. It gets customers in. And then operations keeps them through an excellent, uh, experience and what you're seeing more and more today as marketing, having responsibility for the after sale, in terms of communicating with customers, solving their problems, posting useful content, and then creating a, uh, a wonderful experience with the customer
Ian: and creating a better experience is what Bob and his team did at AR.
By adding a broader menu to their brand, the customer base was expanded and an iconic phrase was born.
Bob: All these, we have the meats, you can have all the great product in the world and the greatest marketing, if you don't master the basics. Uh, you're not gonna break through, you know, it's a, what, what you call is the minimum that customer requires from you, you need to meet or exceed.
So, uh, so the company really went to work on operations and then, uh, my team went to work on message and, uh, and, and product. And, uh, so with the table, stakes were kind of managed. We set about to differentiate based on product. So we moved from. Being, uh, arres was known as a, kind of a, a roast beef sandwich.
And we moved to being like an, any kind of meat sandwich. Uh, you know, we introduced a brisket sandwich, uh, Turkey. We experimented with veal, uh, all these kind of incredible, uh, sandwiches in all the kinds of different meats. And people really love that. And it added to the broad appeal of the brand. And then we went on, uh, on onto message, which is.
Uh, we have the meets, uh, which I think started in, uh, 2012, 2013, and as a really long running successful campaign,
Ian: we have the meets was a wildly successful campaign. And Bob wanted to make sure that all the people who saw those ads, all the people who were gonna go to Arby's had a wonderful experience when they got.
Bob: And the other point of differentiation was customer care and customer experience. So what we did there is we started building new restaurants and reimagining restaurants. So the atmosphere, uh, was one that was pleasant and enjoyable, consistent with the brand message. Uh, and, uh, I'll tell you what, another thing that we did, which is, uh, interesting.
There's nothing. Better than the smell of fresh roast beef cooking. And we were actually able to take and develop that scent. And we were able to put that through our ventilation system. So now you have this new restaurant with these outstanding sandwiches. You have, uh, advertising that people love and it's become a catch call.
And then you have new restaurants and in-store experience. Combined with an upgraded drive through experience, cuz uh, in those days, the drive through was 20 to 30% of the business. Now it's more obviously with the pandemic and that really added up to tremendous success for the RV's brand.
Ian: When it comes to creating an exceptional customer experience, your product is important.
However, in Bob's experience, the likability of the brand can actually outweigh the product at times. Here's an example.
Bob: I'm sure people listening here, uh, have had experience with apple products, right. And people are zealots. And, uh, when they go to buy a new product, whether it's a phone or a computer, I mean, they just, uh, they don't think about it.
It's a no brainer for many people that are apple users. The other thing, um, is that, uh, some, sometimes their product quality wasn't great and it is today, but I recall in my own personal household, the products used to break all the time. Did I get mad? You know, that would be, that would be a recipe for bad customer experience.
They would get a bad rating from me Applewood. Right? Well, that, wasn't the case. I liked the brand so much that I thankfully went out and bought. So the role of the product, the role of the communications, uh, can't be overlooked enough because it does play a role in setting expectations, having to do with your connection and likability of the brand, which all contributes to a, a positive, uh, customer experience.
Ian: After Kentucky fried chicken, ran their finger, licking good campaign customers who never licked their fingers before. Well, they began. Slogan made their customers feel comfortable to do something that they might have never dared to do. Bob agrees that sometimes customer's greatest needs lie in their subconscious.
You
Bob: know, I believe customer experience is, um, the customer's perception of their rational, physical and emotional subconsciousness, and many organizations are really good at the rational, but they're not good at. Emotional subconscious or their psychological interaction with the brand. I believe, uh, the key to excellent customer experience is to create behaviors and experiences for customers that build memories, uh, magic moments, uh, think about, think about the time that, uh, you know, Friday pizza night for the family, uh, those, uh, you know, are things that you can't.
Just create they happen because of the uniqueness of the category and the, uh, the meaning that it has in terms of how it fits in some one's lifestyle. And then the other aspect of customer experience that I have a strong philosophy is is that in a way, um, you know, you're, you're, you are solving customer, uh, issues, right.
That come up, but everything, every touchpoint with the customer. Is an opportunity to enhance your brand reputation and loyalty. And then there are these series of what I would call moments of truth, where you either got the customer and you made him a customer for life, or you lose them as
Ian: a four time CMO.
Bob knows a thing or two about taking care of different stakeholders. Here's his advice on how to balance.
Bob: I guess what I would, I would do is look at the degree of influence on the Y access from low to high. And then on the X axis, I would look at what expectations they have. So think about this, your customer, isn't an upper right hand quadrant that's they have high influence and they have high expectations.
So your most time intensive endeavor is gonna be on your customers. And you're gonna engage with them frequently. You're going to engage with them through wilty programs, special offers VI IP treatment. If they have a, a problem, uh, to resolve their problems. But direct contact, think about your suppliers have a lot of influence, but their expectations aren't as high.
So, but you need to have regular communication. You need to take each of those supplier organizations in their manifold. And running a restaurant and you need to have communications with them. I would say at least four times a year to let them know what you're doing and keep on board what you're doing and turn them into advocates.
Your shareholders are probably low influence, low expectation. You need to communicate with your shareholders to inform and educate what you're doing. And then lastly, uh, you know, high impact, uh, Uh, high, high expectation as well is your employees. So it's energizing and educating employees, uh, training them, uh, helping them respond to the needs, to solve problems and use that as a force multiplier in your interactions with customers and managing that relationship
Ian: finger licking good would not have worked for just any fast food.
Just like we have the meets wouldn't have worked for anyone. Bob understands that the best marketing and the best CX is customized to fit a brand specific voice and how to differentiate that from its customers.
Bob: You've gotta look at this as a, a system that is predictable and repeatable. I think you have to look at this customer experience.
So many brands. Look at it as a transaction, right? It's not at all. Customer experience is about helping people. It's about solving their problems. And I really do believe that a great customer experience is one that is personalized. It's timely, it's seamless, it's relevant to the customer and hopefully lead them thinking that it was a remarkable experience that they can share with, with others.
And, uh, I think in all that, when I talk about having a system in place or a common practice, uh, that's the way, uh, to ensure consistency, where you deliver the brand with predictability and umbrella, quality time in and time out, uh, always every time, the same thing, the same kind of expectations that are exceeded, and that leads to trust.
And that's where you get customers for life.
Ian: In order to get lifelong customers, you need to differentiate yourself by providing an experience, unlike any of your competitors as both KFC and Bob demonstrated. Communication of that experience is just as important as the product itself. The best CX builds connections with its distinctive and lovable personality, whether that's through the smells of roast beef.
Or feeling okay to lick those philes slogans, not only function to catch a customer's attention, but also guarantee the customer experience, challenge yourself to find your customer's subconscious needs, those little human moments. They might be a little awkward and they might make you feel a little uncomfortable as a marketer, but those ads will be unforgettable.
And the linger on your mind, like those 11 nerves and spices from the old curl CX that's finger looking good.
This podcast was brought to you by the generous support of our friends at Oracle. Make sure every interaction matters with Oracle advertising in CX connect, all your data and empower your entire business to deliver exceptional customer experiences from acquisition to attention and everything in between.
Hear more executive perspectives on CX transformation. At oracle.com/cx. This is your Hosty and phon CEO of Caspian studios. Thank you for listening to another episode of often imitated. If you like what you're hearing, please tell one friend. This podcast was narrated by me, Ian Faison written by Emma DeMuth and produced and edited by Mackey Wilson, Callen Turnbull, and Jon Libbey.
You can learn more about our team at caspianstudios.com. I'm hungry.