In a meeting during my KFC days, one of my colleagues suggested that KFC was an essential service. Like the Fire Station, Police, Nurses, and Teachers. At the time, it was in the context of if we should close for public holidays. He said the Police Stations do not close and neither should us.
How did KFC reach there, for him to even think it? And how has it become the national dish of Trinidad and Tobago, together with its street food cousin, Doubles?
Long story short, this is how KFC got there: Food + Experience + Value.
KFC has ticked all the right boxes in these three areas and with their bazillion transactions, things also sometimes get screwed up.
It is indisputable that KFC has become a key part of life across Trinidad and in urban Tobago. T&T’s per capita chicken consumption is among the highest in the world. And KFC owns a dominant position, in the chicken prepared outside the home.
Enter Artificial Intelligence (AI), which some are already declaring as being as big as the internet itself and it will not surprise me that the folks at Yum, the KFC brand owner, must be already conjuring up ways to use it to serve customers even better. But as AI grows in effectiveness and use, how a brand performs in the marketplace will still always be about keeping promises, relevance, and being convenient for customers to access, pay and communicate with. KFC is popular all over the world but in T&T it is part of us. It is the way we feed ourselves and our families, how we relax and. celebrate.
To think that all of this started with one guy and his wife, in a gas station.
