{"id":8725,"date":"2013-02-06T06:07:18","date_gmt":"2013-02-06T14:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/burgersdogspizza.com\/?p=8725"},"modified":"2013-02-06T06:07:18","modified_gmt":"2013-02-06T14:07:18","slug":"rant-yum-brands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/?p=8725","title":{"rendered":"I Go on a Rant About Yum Brands"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yum! was created on October 7, 1997, as\u00a0Tricon Global Restaurants, Inc.<\/strong>\u00a0an independent company, as a result of a\u00a0spin-out\u00a0from\u00a0PepsiCo, which owned and franchised the KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell brands worldwide.\u00a0 It\u2019s been a successful venture, by any measure.<\/p>\n

What fascinates and irritates me at the same time, is the company\u2019s idea of \u201cproduct innovation\u201d is limited to what I am calling \u201cshape shifting\u201d.<\/p>\n

Take the same ingredients, make it into a different shape, give it a made-up name, market the hell out of it.\u00a0 Voila!\u00a0\u00a0 Change management!<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve tested my theory by ordering by shape at Taco Bell;\u00a0 I\u2019d like two of those \u201ctube\u201d things, or \u201cone triangle, and one square\u201d.\u00a0 Most clerks get it.<\/p>\n

Pizza Hut has done it by reworking the same ingredients into \u201cthin, hand-tossed, and pan\u201d style pizzas;\u00a0 whacking pizza dough into slices and calling it breadsticks;\u00a0 putting several different items into a box and calling it a \u201cbig dinner box\u201d and now, making a raft of tiny pizzas and calling them \u201csliders\u201d.<\/p>\n

KFC?\u00a0 Same deal.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to see any of these brands branch out from this mentality, and come up with some new products.\u00a0 Yum acquired Long John Silvers and A&W a decade ago, didn\u2019t keep them long, I guess they couldn\u2019t figure out how to reshape root beer and fish sticks.<\/p>\n

The big growth for all of these companies is coming from opening international locations, and in the case of YUM, particularly China.\u00a0 I remember being at one of the first Pizza Huts in China, in Guangzhou, maybe 15 years or so ago.\u00a0 My Chinese colleagues were masters of cleaning out the salad bar by stacking ingredients on a single plate.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It was generally thought, at least by western culture, that the Chinese did not have an affinity for cheese, so as I recall, the pizza menu referred to that ingredient as a \u201chot and creamy melted topping\u201d or some such.<\/p>\n

Perhaps being located in different cultures, YUM will be able to introduce some more new shapes in the US market.\u00a0\u00a0 But let\u2019s hope it goes beyond that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yum! was created on October 7, 1997, as\u00a0Tricon Global Restaurants, Inc.\u00a0an independent company, as a result of a\u00a0spin-out\u00a0from\u00a0PepsiCo, which owned and franchised the KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell brands worldwide.\u00a0 It\u2019s been a successful venture, by any measure. What fascinates and irritates me at the same time, is the company\u2019s idea of \u201cproduct innovation\u201d… Continue reading I Go on a Rant About Yum Brands<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,12,15,16,34],"tags":[426,2014,2659,3396,3789],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8725"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8725\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}