Secret Sauce of CMOs/Alice Crowder - Chicken Sandwich Wars, Segmentation, Hedonistic Index ~ Spark of Ages Ep 25 - Spark of Ages

Episode Transcript
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Rajiv Parikh (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the Spark of Ages podcast.
In this episode, we'll beexploring Krispy Krunchy Chicken
or KKC and the larger chickensandwich wars landscape in which
our guests, our special guest,Alice Crowder competes in.
Alice is the CMO of KKC, whichis one of the fastest growing
hot food concepts in theconvenience store business.

(00:27):
KKC has built a cult likebrand with consumers and has
grown to over 3, 000 retaillocations across 47 states.
Alice's food and beveragemarketing experience also
includes Krystal Restaurants,where she also served as CMO,
Tropical Smoothie Cafe, whereshe headed menu strategy and
innovation and multiple years.

(00:48):
With Denny's as theirsenior director of
new product marketing.

Sandeep Parikh (00:51):
Oh my God.
I should not have started thispodcast with an empty stomach.
This was a mistake.

Today's show is a little different
than what we typically do.
We're looking at the CMO roleat a consumer based company.
So we can hunt for ideasthat might spark our own
creativity and imagination interms of go to market growth.
Some of the key takeaways youcan expect from this episode.
Growth strategy in a highlycompetitive category like
Chicken sandwiches, and that'ssuper competitive, by the way.

(01:16):
The role data and analyticsplay in driving go to market
for a consumer product.
The evolution of theCMO role that comes with
technological upheaval.
Alice, welcome tothe Spark of Ages.

Alice Crowder (01:28):
Thank you for having me.

Great to have you here.
We.
Uh, you came upon us throughthe marketing Mars event that
one of our folks who arrangesthe show, Taryn, uh, met you
there and she just loved yourstyle, love your way of thinking
and the way you innovate.
And so, uh, so gladto have you here.
I think it'll be a lotof fun, uh, and a lot
of learning for us.

(02:00):
One of the questions thatwe want to just kick off
with, this is a, the, thechicken sandwich space is
a super hot space, right?
I mean, even McDonald's nowhas created a chicken, big Mac.
Right.
Cause they, they see, theysee their lunch being eaten.
So as a marketer, um, yourcompany is one of the most
fiercely contested, uh,of those products, right?

(02:21):
The chicken sandwich.
And when you joined thecompany just recently in
2023 with a chicken sandwichwar, something you considered
in differentiating KrispyKrunchy foods from anyone
else, where there's somedifferentiation that, that
you felt, or was this just asuper fast growing category,
you know, that you felt thatyou could really innovate on.

Yeah, it's a great question.
You know, our business wasbuilt on, uh, bone in chicken
and, um, uh, and tenders andwe had a chicken sandwich
when I got here, but reallyall the love and the history
of the company had come fromfrom bone in and tenders when

(03:00):
we started to look at it.
It was a real miss in terms ofthe product mix that we had.
It was designed for value asopposed to consumer delight.
So it was a thinner product.
It's what we call choppedin form, which is where
you take a bunch of chickenbits and kind of crush them
together to look like a patty.

(03:21):
Um, and it was at a reallycompetitive price point.
But it was more stomach fillthan a product that would
build an affinity with a guest.
So when I started, uh, Headof Supply Chain and I started
working on it, we wanted asandwich that would represent
the quality that the bonein and the tenders did.

(03:43):
From our research, what weknow is people seek out Krispy
Krunchy For three reasons thefirst is quality the second is
value number three crave abilityuh, we absolutely deliver on
that with bonan and Our tenders,but the sandwich was more a
value price point So we reallydeconstructed the whole thing.

(04:04):
We ate a lot of chickensandwiches from a lot of
different people Um, uh, Ican't imagine the research phase

must have been pretty fun.
I

mean, really, if I'm honest, this is
the best job in the world.
I would talk to my husband.
He's like, what are you doing?
I'm eating out andchicken sandwiches.

I

gotta eat three more.

Yeah, I'm working right now.
Don't, don't bug me.
Don't bother me.

I got to digest some chicken.
Um, But so we startedwith the meat.
We started with the chicken.
Our chicken, uh, is marinatedin this really lovely, mild
blend of Cajun seasoning.
So we started there.
We also got what we call wholemuscle, like breast meat,
like we just carved the breastmeat out of the chicken.
So it's the highest kind ofquality piece of the chicken.

(04:50):
It's whole, and then it'smarinated, um, in these great
spices, and then it's lightlycoated With uh, our proprietary
breading which gives it thatreally nice crunch Like there's
a lot of asmr with our brandright you bite it and you hear
it Um, but we didn't stop thereWe have a signature honey sauce

(05:11):
that we put on our biscuitsWe put a little of that on
we even upgraded the pickles.
So we have these really crispFlavorful dill slices you
can tell if somebody caresabout the quality of their
product You By if they skimpon the pickles or not and we
did that's right I was gonna

say nobody loves a soggy
pickle, but yet yeah Yeah,

and then we topped it with this lovely,
um soft brioche bun so youput it all together we did
a lot of testing Uh to makesure that what we thought
was good was what our targetThought was good and then we
introduced it with quite a bitof fanfare Um, earlier this
year, uh, and since then salesof the sandwich have doubled.

(05:55):
We're, we're at 200 percentof what we were last year.
Oh my gosh.
So people are reallyresponding to it.

Were you ever surprised by the
reactions in your testing?
Like, was there ever like,my man, I really like this
version of the sandwich orthis version of the sauce.
And, but everybody seemsto like this other one.
I'm just curious, like, werethere any sort of surprises
that came out of that testing?

Yeah.
So I'm always wrong.
It is a joke with our chef whohas been with me at several
brands for about a decade.
Um, it's whateverAlice thinks is

definitely

going to tank in research.
One of the things we didwhen I started with the brand
is a segmentation study,which is a fancy way of
saying we figured out who.
Our brand serves what werepresent to those people and
who they want us to be And sowhen I do testing taste testing
concept testing Anything elsewe speak only to those people.

(06:49):
We have something called atyping tool so that when I go
into research we are Testingwith the people who are most
likely to be exposed to theproduct Um, and then they tell
us You If what we guessed isright or wrong and help us get
to the right spot for them.
One of the, I'm a littlebit famous for a bit

(07:11):
of a feisty temper.
And one of my triggers is I hearfrom investors and board members
and salespeople all the time.
Well, you should haveconsulted me because what
I think your gut is notstatistically significant.
Okay.
Yeah.
120 people whorepresent your target.
That's where you wantto get your insights.

(07:31):
So, yes, I have beenproven wrong many times.
Um, the, the sandwich, oneof them, um, the bun, um, I
wanted a little bit heartierbun, a little bit chewier bun.
Um, but turns out peoplereally want that contrast
between super soft bun.
Super Krispy fillet.

So yeah, so that, that's what you, you
know, sort of meant by the,the, not just the taste,
but the crave ability.
Right.
So that's part of that,that whole notion of
putting it together.
It's not the, notthe individual.
It's how it comes together.

Everyone (08:01):
Yeah.
It's the wholepalate experience.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.

So if you try to do the Silicon Valley
thing or not, or the, the,you know, the thing where
you try to remove the bun andjust have the meat that you're
not getting the experience.

Yeah, we learned this on, um, I just tested,
um, some chicken tenders, andwe thought we had done a good
job, uh, with designing thetest, and I wanted them just
to taste the tender and tell mewhat they thought about it, but
we got a lot of feedback thatthat's not how I eat a tender.
To me, the tenderis a sauce conduit.

(08:33):
I want to get as muchhoney mustard as I can
on there and eat that.
That's how youshould have tested.
And I'm, and in my head,I'm like, well, you're not
giving me a pure read on thetender, but it's my own words
coming back to eat, right?
You have to test it the way thatyour target's going to enjoy it.
Uh, and so, yeah.

And how did you decide who your target was?
Cause I, and this actually kindof combines with this notion
of the, the hot food concept,which I think is, so let's talk
about the target and then let'sget into the hot food concept.
Cause I'm, I think the bothare really interesting ways
of how, This is a differentbusiness than what most
people would normally think

it is.
Um, that's something I camefrom a long line of, of QSR
and before that packagedgoods and so came with a lot
of assumptions about what arestaurant operating in a C
store should and could be.
It's a different target.
It's a differentset of expectations.
It's a differentset of occasions.
So to answer your firstquestion, We did a traditional

(09:32):
segmentation the firstmonth that I was here.
And this is where I geek out.
So you're just going to haveto give me a sign or something.
That's like, I lovethe geeking out.
Some people get us back

on track if we geek out too far.

Yeah.
So in a segmentation, you goout and you talk to a whole
bunch of different people andyou ask them questions like,
do you eat fried chicken?
There's a group that eatsfried chicken if you do
where are all the placesthat you Eat fried chicken.
Well, I eat at kfc and chickfil a and If they name your

(10:03):
restaurant That's givingyou a point of aided of
unneeded awareness Right, sowe put them in a group after
that we say All right, whatif I give you some names?
What about KrispyKrunchy chicken?
Oh, yeah, I've eaten thereOkay, and that gives you
another set of terms.
So when we talk about Brandawareness we talk in terms

(10:23):
of unaided awareness andaided awareness unaided
you want because that meansyou're really top of mind
But Aiden, at least you're inthe consideration set, right?
And then we starttalking to those folks.
So, when do you eat chicken?
Why do you eat the chicken?
What are you lookingfor in the chicken?
The chicken thatyou like the best.
What does it look like?
The chicken that you don't like.
What is it like?
What do you expect to pay?
And so, when you put all thoseinto, uh, A big chart you start

(10:48):
to see how different groupscome together and those are
your segments Um, it used tobe that people did segmentation
strictly on demographics LikeI like single or people like
me are single women with 1.
3 kids and they make thismuch money It turns out to
be more nuanced than that.
So our segments are based ondemographics, but also Occasions

(11:10):
so my number one target

Everyone (11:12):
Is a

group I have three targets our number one
target or segment is a groupof people that regularly
get their prepared food fromconvenience stores because it's
affordable and because theirschedules are such that They
need it when they need it andthey're going to stop in in
the morning maybe And get aMountain Dew or a coffee But

(11:35):
they're also going to pick upa three piece and a biscuit for
lunch that day and put it intotheir cooler the representative
of You The population, theyuse us interchangeably with
QSR with your with fast food,but we are seen in their mind
as the same quality as fastfood, but at a better price.

Everyone (11:55):
And

then when they compare us to other choices,
other chicken choices andconvenience stores, they
see us at the same price.
But a higher quality so we havethis beautiful little sweet
spot with that segment I havea second segment that's for
lack of a better word hipstersWho think it's cool to find
cool stuff in a conveniencestore to chow down on?

(12:15):
Yeah, okay And you see themon instagram and tiktok all
the time I found this greatchicken at the convenience
store and I put some Cheetodust on it, you know.

I, I hear you on this hipster segment.
Uh, these are, these aremy people, my friends.
I'm

always fascinated with how people take things.
We put all thisresearch and care and
everything in the things.
Um, and people go into aconvenience store and you're
like, I'm going to chopup some sweet tarts and
put it on this business.
Yeah.

Yeah.
And then, you know, you getenough of a segment there and
suddenly you're doing a collabwith sweet tarts and you're on
to a whole new product line.
Yeah.
Drop my

five hour energy onto the chicken

and wake myself up.
100%.
100%.
And then our third segmentare people who aren't
necessarily going to go intoa convenience store isn't in
their consideration set for.
Hot food, they might goin for a candy bar or some
smokes or drink or whatever.
Um, but if they see a highquality product on a 3rd
party delivery, like an ubereats or a door dash, they're

(13:17):
going to order it there.
And so they're muchless price sensitive.
Um, but we can build loyaltywith them through third party.
So those are my three segments.
Oh,

that's, that's a really interesting segment.
I mean, so the actual listing ona Grubhub, Uber eats, something
like that will actually drive,drive sales for you or drive,
drive the market for you.

Yeah.
Yeah, it does.
Um, and we're seeing, we'regetting all of our stores on
third party right now, butwe're, we've got about, um, Call
it 600 stores of the, of the3000 on and what we see is that
people spend three times, twoand a half times to three times
what they do in store online.

(13:59):
So if I'm going to spend 10for a meal in the convenience
store, the order that shows upto my house is, I think it's
pretty close to 26 and 50 cents.
So it's a muchbigger market basket.
They order different things.
They try things from theirhome, from their couch.

That's amazing.
So this gets to that conceptof the hot store, right?
The hot store concept, becauseif, which is different than,
is this the first type thatyou're doing of this in your
career or have you, did youdo variations of this before
what you're saying actually inthis is like, Because you can
locate with greater densityin these different convenience

(14:38):
stores, like an Uber Eatsor a Grubhub, I can actually
get you fresher product.

Yeah.

You know, in, in the given timeframe, right?
Because it's, you'll bein more locations that are
near a particular person.

Yeah.
So we have pretty highpenetration, 3, 000 stores,
nothing, nothing to sneeze at.
We'll have 4, 000 atthe end of next year.
Right.
I

think you were growing like, you
were growing at like 500to 700, you know, a year.
A year.
It's just an incredible amount.
Yeah.

Yeah, because we don't have
to buy the real estate.
So people, our licenseeshave their, their pad, they
have their convenience store,and then they have, we talk
about fuel and merchandise.
So the inside of the store istheir merchandise sales piece.
The hot food concept in ourresearch is about 20 percent

(15:20):
of those merchandise sales.
Um, but once you add a KrispyKrunchy, your, um, your sales
go up, uh, 15 to 20 percentand your traffic increases
too, because there is enoughbrand loyalty that people
will drive past anotherconvenience store to get to
one with a Krispy Krunchy.

(15:41):
Um, because they're, they knowthere is that kind of loyalty.
Um, and so it does providean accretive impact to
sales and to traffic.

So for, for the, the layman who has
not experienced a Krispycountry, Krunchy, can,
can you just give it like,so what's the experience?
I'm, I'm like passing a wawaand then I'll see a sign on
the wall or something that,that says Krispy Krunchy
inside, or like, how dothey, how do they know that a
convenience store has, has it?

So it has signage on the outside.
So Wawa has their own foodprogram, but if they ever
wanted to upgrade, gimme a call.
I can help you out.
Wawa . Let's talkabout Circle K.
Circle K.
Yes.
Circle K.
Circle K.
Yes.
So go by a circle K.
You'll see, um, on most of,of the exteriors, um, uh,
a lighted dye cut sign thatsays Krispy Krunchy chicken.
Um, we also, when weopen a store, have a.

(16:32):
Big merchandising package.
Um, the center of whichare these, um, we call
'em the flying drumsticks.
These huge win waivers thatare just like a big drumstick.
Um, so you would see thatyou would come in and
um, you know, here's yourcoolers of drinks over here.
Here's some snacks,here's the counter with
the lottery tickets.

(16:52):
And then on one of the maincounters is a hot food case.

Everyone (16:56):
Usually

with a little kitchen, um, either right
there with it or behindit in a space depending
on the size of the store.
Um, and you just go up andyou order it like you would
anything in a, in a foodcourt or a bodega or whatever,
it's right there for you.

Rajiv Parik (17:13):
That's really cool.
So that, so you come in and,and so you have actually a
two part job as the head ofmarketing and it sounds like
you're also involved, heavilyinvolved in product as well.
Maybe in your world,marketing is product, right?
Cause that's, Part ofthe four pieces, right?
And, but you're marketing tothe consumer, you're promoting
to the consumer, but you'realso promoting to all these

(17:33):
outlets of these placesthat could sign up for it.
So you have a, you almostsaid you're doing B2B and B2C.

That's a big part of what we do.
And this brand was builtwhen it was started 37
years ago, it was built asa solution for operators.
And for a long time, theonly communication stream
was between the And the, theoperator, the owner of the
convenience store to say,we'll make a little more money.
This is an easy way to do it.
When we were, uh, purchasedby private equity about 3

(18:02):
years ago, they saw the valueas, as I did when I started
looking at the brand of alsobeing a brand that has a
communication system and arelationship with the end user,
the get, we call them guests.
And so what we've been doingfor the past couple of years
since I've been here is buildingthat side of the business,
understanding what they wantfrom us as an experience and

(18:26):
modifying the way we go tomarket and what we offer those
guests to make us even moreappealing and create loyalty.

It's not just a little add on,
you take it and you run.
Some of them actually eat inthe, they eat at the convenience
store, you know, there's,there can be seats there.
And so part of the trainingor the understanding is
that taking it like in adedicated franchise outlet,
that's all they do right now.
You're taking someone who is,this is a way to drive income
and drive, drive additional,um, you know, retention or more.

(18:57):
More folks coming in more folksstaying and so you're reaching
you have to sort of you haveto do a dual training, right?
You gotta you have to getthem to to this is yes, this
can make you more money Youhave to take this much space
you have to actually make thegoods here and you have to
treat people in a certain way

Yes, um, which you know, most of our
operators understand thatintuitively uh our business
The majority of our businessare with independent operators.
We, we have some chains.
We're working on getting morechains, but we were, we were
built on folks who it's a familybusiness for the most part.

Everyone (19:30):
A

lot of our operators, the family works
there and so it's theirbusiness and they understand.
The importance of being partof the community and treating
everyone who comes in as part ofthat family So the hospitality
part is almost ingrained inthe business model The harder
part believe it or not is

Everyone (19:52):
there's

benefit and challenge with being a family
business For example, if youhave third party you guys order
doordash new breeds Probablythe prime times for that are
friday night and saturdaynight for a convenience store
that's owned by a familyThat's their family time.
They want to, they wantto quit at 5 and go.
That's their night to goout with their family.

(20:14):
That's when they're at home.
And so they're like, that'sjust an off time for me.
So having to negotiateworking with their familial
structure and their businessstructure and then negotiating
whenever conflicts come isa big part of what we do.

Yeah, I would imagine.
Potentially a lot ofSouth Asian mom and pop
business owners, right?
Sure.
Those are, those areliterally our people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it's greatbecause it's not beef.
Uh, cause that wouldbe that maybe not so
great for us or pork.
This is chicken.
We can deal with chicken.
Yeah.

We're chicken.
We're chicken in thesewonderful, um, we call
them crack biscuits.
Cause there are these reallysweet cat head drop biscuits
with honey all over them.
Everybody can eat those.
Yeah.

Everyone can have some of those.
That sounds great.
So think of when, whenyou think about it,
like as a marketer, you.
You probably have comeacross many great different
types of promotionsthat people have used.
People use in terms ofdriving their business and
you've seen it across somany different categories.
So what's a favorite of yoursfor how you drew, how you see,
you know, drove the growth.
I know right now youhave that 4 value meal.

(21:16):
I saw that.
That's like, that's a, that'sa thing of today, probably
dealing with today's marketand today, today's concept.
But is there something thatreally caught your eye that.
All right.
This really worked well.
I think he's talkedabout the chicken bone at
the top or the chicken.
Yeah.

Yeah.
The flying, the flying drumstickworked really well for us.
We rebranded when I got hereand I think that helped because
the brand hadn't really focusedon the guest experience.

Everyone (21:42):
They

just kind of went in and said, let's just.
Put it in and see what happens.
And so there was a lot of redand white and a lot of really
functional Uh kind of signagearound it When we came in
and have an amazing creativeteam and started looking at
all right Let's look at thisthrough the guests eyes.
How do we create an actualenvironment for them?

(22:04):
So we changed the color Schemeentirely because if you think
about convenience stores,it's all red and white and if
you put a red and white It'sthe best camouflage there
is you put a red and whitesign on A display that's
all red and white around it.
You don't see it So we createdand there's so much clutter too
because every brand is competingFor the consumer eye, so we

(22:27):
created what we call the visualoasis Uh, every time I say it,
my CEO rolls his eyes at me.
He's like, Alice,you and your words.

But, um, You are an English major,
so that isn't a thing.
I'm an English major.

Um, so it's, it's, we, we have a lot of blue
space, like a beautiful deepblue with one central picture
and the key words for ourguests, which, which are, um,
hand breaded and prepared fresh.
Because people, we're soproud of the fact that
we're fresh chicken.
No one knew.
Never frozen.

(22:58):
Never frozen and so that is abig part We it's you hear a lot
in advertising and marketingabout single most important
message for us single mostimportant message is, um,
never frozen freshly made handbreaded back of the house and
so all of our messaging is avariation on those key points

(23:18):
presented Um, in as simpleas a way and as visually
engaging in a way as possible,and it makes a difference.
So people started seeing us.

Do you, do you have like salivation studies?
Like when you see the picture,like try to, you know, when
I, when your audience looksat this, it's like, it must
be like certain becauseyou're trying to evoke,

you know, you're trying to get people,
you're trying to get peopleto crave the craving.
I mean, I guess, I guessthat's what you talked about
when you went with the but I,I just wanted to shout out.
English majors.
Okay.
So this is, you know,clear cut example.
You are a clear cut exampleof why being an English major,
why focusing on communicationand studying this can actually

(24:01):
benefit and, and, and, andlead to good jobs, uh, and,
and, and have, you know, Beproductive members of society
and shouldn't be frowned upon.
Uh, I'm mostly speakingto South Asian parents.
Um, but yeah,

but as the theater major, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Let's not push it.
It wasn't a theater major.
No, film, sorry, film and,uh, and computer science.
Something was filming tomake his parents happy.
I'm sure,

you know, just, Hey, look, it's, it's
hard to figure out what twowords are going to really.
Stick out to people asthey're stumbling through or
walking through or hurryingthrough a convenience store
to make them stop and go,Hey, this is something I
want to pay attention toand potentially purchase.
Right?
So for coming up with handbreaded, like as soon as
you said those, I picturedmyself in the middle of

(24:48):
a circle K or whatever.
And I are, I have my skepticismabout the food there.
Being like, this isn't, thisis not gonna be good food for
me, like, this is not why I'm,I'm not doing this for health
reasons necessarily, but yousay that, and all of a sudden
I'm like, a little bit perkedup, like that, you know, and you
go, hey, maybe this isn't so badfor me, and, and I should, you

(25:09):
know, And I do had a move, andso this is a good option for me.
Um, but it probably took youa while, I imagine, or maybe
you could speak to this,like, to, to figure out what,
what those exact words were.

I go back to the segmentation.
Like, my, my team gets sickof me saying this, but I,
I don't believe there's anyproblem that can't be solved
by process and communication.
And so when we listen tothe guests and segmentation,
um, we do this thing called,I don't know, I think it's
called like a hedonistic index.
Um.
But we not only find out

you've got the best words

I can't I can't claim that

index i'm writing that down

So it's we look at how you rate each part Of
the chicken eating experience,but then we overlay that with
what's most important to youSo you may think for example
that our breading is greatand that the meat is really
juicy Which one of those?

(26:06):
Is the one that pushes youmore towards the purchase
And for us it was it was thefreshness Um, yeah people
really respond exactly whatyou're talking about people.
Um, Go into a conveniencestore and they're like, well,
I bet this is gonna be crapYeah, but when they see that
it's it comes in fresh It'spre marinated, but it comes

(26:28):
in fresh and then we doublebread it back in the house.
You're like, okay You If mymama could cook, that's how
she would make it, no offensiveto Crowder, but, you know, it
gives, it pushes, it resetsyour expectation for what the
experience is going to be.
I love

that.
So people, when they do comein, they really do care, right?
It is, it is sort of theopposite expectation of
what you get from a, from aconvenience store in terms of
quick, Grab and go and just eat.
This is like, I'mgetting something fresh.
They actually, Oh, they'veactually read it in the
back, which is awesome.
And then make it there, whichI'm sure is part of the process
you've had to work on andcreate, you know, to enable and

(27:06):
sustain and, and check upon.
I wonder like when youtalked about Uber right?
There are thesenew sales channels.
Right.
That you were talking about,you're seeing three X, the
level of purchasing on that, onthose platforms versus others.
So one of the things we seeis like the rise of retail
media networks, right?
So like Chick fil A hasits own streaming service.

(27:26):
Are you thinkingabout that as well?
Or how to, how to leverage thatbecause you have a connection
to the consumer, maybe not aloyalty program per se, but
it's through the, throughthe owner operator, how are
you trying to reinforce thebrand in place, either in
store or outside a store?

Yeah, it's tough because so, yes, we are thinking
about it, but we're also.
Really nascent stages right ofbuilding our guest relationship.
If you talk to our operatorswho are awesome folks, they
have, I think, even more sothan a franchisee of a QSR or
something like that to them.

(28:04):
It's KK, it's Krispy Krunchy,but it's their Krispy Krunchy.
And so the level of ownershipand pride they take in it is
much more almost proprietarythan it would be with like
a more established brand.
So you hear them be like, well,my KKC, I do, you know, this,

(28:25):
um, which from a brand standardsstandpoint, it's tough.
Cause you know, as a marketer,you want consistency,
but at the same timeyou go in, you're like.
That's pretty cool.
I've got one guy, uh, who takesthe chicken tender, wraps it up
in a tortilla with a little bitof cheese, and uh, like a, Uh, a
soft fried egg is it is killer,but they have that belief in

(28:47):
the quality of the product.

There's a lot of great social posts
coming out of that, whichI'm sure your team has been
working on and developing.
I know you use thatextensively in your previous
and your previous roles.
So are you seeing thattoo, as part of driving it?

So we don't, I have used influencers a lot,
like NIL and stuff like that,but the influencers that we
engage with are true brand fans.
We get a lot of organiccontent from them.
I mean, we do some, someplacements and then we
get organic content andthen we boost it out.

(29:20):
Um, because it's acreative bunch too.
I have one guy in Baltimorewho took all the POP out
the front of his store andmade an outfit out of it.
So like the, the featherflag, or it's like, A vest
and he like wrapped thelegs of his thing with With
like some window clings orsomething and he does this
like Krispy Krunchy dance likeall dressed in my pop um How

perfect for our Halloween themed episode.
Oh

my gosh, if you don't think I'm wearing
that next week, you're crazy.
To answer your questiondirectly, like we, we're
really starting to testlevers to understand
what people relate to.
Our socials do reallywell because there's that
kind of organic love.
I've worked for brands where theproduct was kind of, and so the

(30:07):
marketing had to work harder.
But if I get this productin anybody's mouth,
they're immediately.
A brand fan.
So I like to use thosefans as much as possible.
So we elevate them.
We've done some advertisingtesting, like some
traditional testing.
We'll do more of that nextyear, but really for us, it's
about building awareness.

(30:28):
We still have a lot of awarenessto build before we start
worrying about conversion.

No, that's a great way of thinking
about it in a great way.
Like, yeah, what I meantinfluencer networks, I meant
you don't have to go hire them.
And the best ones are theorganic ones that people
feel passionate about.
So I love the story about theperson stealing your, stealing
your marketing material ortaking your marketing material
and actually wearing it.
It's, that's awesome.
Your, your presence.
I like

the idea of issuing the my KKC challenge.
You know, like showcasethat guy that made the like
tortilla wrapped one andthen go like, all right,
other KKCs, like, how are yougoing to top what you got?

Other guy who's just crazy and he posts about
us all the time and he alwaysdoes this like little blessing
before and he's like, loveto the Krispy love to the
Krunchy love to the chicken.
It just cheers me up towatch him because he like,
You watch people eat thisproduct and it's obsessed.
It's joy, man.
Yeah, like it evokes joy inthem Like not a lot of other

(31:27):
stuff does and that just hasa a marker and just even more
as a part of the brand Thatjust makes you feel good,

right?
That's amazing.
So then how does, when youtake all this, right, you may
say, uh, what I love, what Ilove about talking with you
is that you may say, I'm,I'm originally an English
major and you talk aboutthe words, but you actually
do a lot with data, right?
And with consumers,it's critical.
To nail it with, with data,especially when you're, when
you're doing such scale.
So can you just talk abouta little bit more of that

(31:56):
data and analytics and howyou've used that to innovate?

Yeah.
So I don't, I have very littlepatience with marketers, even
when they're successful, thatare like, I know my customer and
this is what I'm going to do.
That's just like gambling.
Just go to Vegas and put allyour money on red or black.
Um, so we actually havean innovation funnel.
Here that we work on, um, usingthat typing tool that I talked
about, which means we're onlytalking to people who are either

(32:23):
current users of the brand orpotential users of the brand.
It's kind of a 3 stage process.
So, the 1st is the conceptitself, and we come up with,
so you think about yourtraditional funnel, very
top of the funnel, wholebunch of ideas every month.
So, 2 sentence ideas.
What if we, what if weput cream cheese icing
on a biscuit and put.

(32:43):
Sprinkles on it.
What if we made chickennuggets and put them
between two waffles?
What if we did and so that'sjust the concept and we concept
test those through the typingtool And get a pretty good
rough read of purchase intentand uniqueness and brand fit
Those are kind of trinity fromthat then from that that gives
us our highest Potential ideasand we start flushing them out.

(33:07):
We see if we can build it, wecost it and see if it works
within our cost structure.
Then we would go to likea simulated marketing test
where we set up a menu andit's part of it, and then we
put it online with that sametyping tool and people order
just like they would, Hey,you're ordering lunch today.
What are you going to get?
I'm going to get this.

(33:27):
And that gives us an idea of.
In a retail environment,what's the take rate
going to be for this item?
So by that point, youknow, hey, people think
this is a good idea.
And if I put it on the menuamongst a whole bunch of
other good ideas, it's goingto get ordered to take great
that I like the 3rd piece ofthe puzzle is what we call
central location test whereyou get about 120 people.

(33:50):
In a room and they taste itDiagnostically, so i'll put
um a new chicken tender infront of you And then I ask
you if you would order it.
I ask you if it would make youcome to my store more often Um,
I ask you about the value I askyou about brand fit But then I
get into the nitty gritty wasthis These things called jar

(34:11):
scores just about right scores.
So was this tender, too big,too small, or just about right.
Was the breading too thick,too thin, or just about right?
Too juicy, too dry,just about right.
And you're looking fora bell curve, right?
But from that, at the endof the day, I can say, Wow,
for X idea that people lovedand people are going to buy
the palette expectation wasmatched or was not matched

(34:35):
by the taste experience.
And that allows me to go backand say, this would be a winner.
If the breading hada little more flavor.
And we cut back on themarinade and maybe it was a
skosh smaller so that by thetime you go to a traditional
market test, you're placing apretty solid bet based on data.

Curious if AI has any influence on any
of this part of the processfor you or you've, have you
thought about that at all?

Yeah, people talk, people love AI, man.
Yeah, people love it.
So if you

have to ask the question, you can also

say, no, maybe, maybe with data, it does.
I mean, it's not going to, itmay not come up with your latest
creative concept, or maybe itwill actually help you ideate
with creative concepts andvisuals and that kind of stuff.
But maybe in the data,there's ways of looking at
data differently than youprobably would have looked at.
Typical regressionsand correlations and
that kind of stuff.

Alice Crowde (35:28):
There probably is.
I haven't found it yet.
Now.
We do use AI and thingslike optimizing the media
by, you know, because thattells you a machine just can
do better with, hey, thisis getting more engagement.
This is getting less engagement.
So feed this 1, take it fromhere and it and it really
optimizes your media by nicely.

(35:48):
Um, I haven't found it in thedevelopment process yet, and
it's probably just because.
I haven't done it yet andI'm old and set in my ways.
Um, certainly AI is being usedin a whole lot of places, but
right now, um, we're much more.
Um, traditional in our ideasearch and development.

That's really, I think now speaking of
scores and data and metricsand, and all that fun stuff,
it's time to pitch yourintelligences to the test.
Okay.
I'm going to, I'm going toAlice, I'm going to welcome you
officially to the spark tank.
This is where, this isthe, yeah, this is where
two C level marketers.
Enter, and one gets battered,fried, and served up for lunch.

(36:29):
All right.
That's right.
This episode is, this episode,this segment is going to be
all about the chicken wars.
We're talking about thatglorious, greasy, glorious
time in fast food historywhen seemingly every
restaurant chain under thesun decided to duke it out.
Right.
For chicken sandwich supremacy.
This happened, you know, right,right around the pandemic or a
little bit before it started,it was a battle fought with

(36:49):
Krispy batter, spicy mayo,and social media savagery.
All right.
In one corner, we've gotAlice Crowder, CMO, Krispy
Krunchy Chicken, variableexpert in all things chicken.
And then CEO Rajiv Parikh,who's no chicken himself, but
is too foolhardy to know whenhe's about to get plucked.
Uh, we'll be servingup three statements.
Okay.
About the chicken wars, two ofwhich are true and one is fake.

(37:12):
Okay.
So let's see who can sniff outthe fake meat from the real
stuff and who gets tarred andfeathered in the spark tank.
Are you guys ready?

Everyone (37:19):
Ready.
Bring it on.
Okay.

All right.
Round one.
We're set, we'resetting the stage.
We all know that, thatPopeye's fired the first shot
with their chicken sandwichand this direct challenge
to Chick fil A on socials.
And that sparked this chickensandwich war that created
long lines, ridiculouswait times, and enthusiasm
bordering on mania.
This question or this.
Round is all about how the otherplayers in the field reacted.

(37:44):
So which of these isthe false statement?
Uh, 1.
KFC sped into the chickenwar scene by partnering
with rapper Lil Nas X.
2.
McDonald's stormed thebeaches of the chicken war
with the submission thatincluded a surprise new
ingredient, spicy pickles.
Or 3.

(38:05):
Even Taco Bell planted theirflag in the war by creating
the chicken sandwich taco,partnering with Arnold
Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito,focused on the chicken sandwich.
With a marketing campaignfocused on odd pairings, which
of these is the false statementthree, two, one reveal.
Okay.
So Alice, you're saying thatKFC partnering with little,

(38:28):
little Nas X is false.
And Rajiv you're sayingthat spicy pickles is false.
Well, guess what?
You're both wrong.
This crazy idea that I cameup with about Arnold and Danny
becoming twins and creatinga chicken taco sandwich.
Uh, it's completely false.
It sounded so good,though, that I figured it's

probably wrong.
I feel like I've seen it.

It sounds alright.
I mean, we see the odd couple,and I've seen them come
back and do a redo on it.
So I was like, itsounds so good.

I would do it.
There's a mental effectin action, everybody.
I'm so glad my pitchfooled you both.
Okay, great.
Alright, well, sooff to a great start.
Both of you have zero points.
Here we go, round two.
At least I have a shotnow, I usually lose these.
Alright, this one's allabout stats around the
uh, the chicken wars here.
Okay, statement number one.
In the first ten days afterlaunching their new chicken
sandwich, Popeyes sold anaverage of a thousand chicken

(39:17):
sandwiches per store per day.
Statement number two, Popeye'ssaw their stock price value
multiply much higher thantheir competitors, KFC,
Chick fil A, and Wing Stomp.
Number three, mentions ofPopeye's chicken sandwich
during the peak of the socialmedia frenzy reached 25
tweets per minute, including asingle tweet from Popeye's in

(39:38):
response to Chick fil A thatgenerated more engagement than
any Super Bowl ad that year.
So, okay.
Uh, which one of these is false?
Ready?
Your answer in three,two, one reveal.
Okay.
Okay.
So Alice, you say one is false.
Rajiv, you say two.
Guess what?
We have someone who'sgoing to get a point

(39:58):
this round and wildly.
It is Rajiv.
Well,

yeah,

yeah.

Alice Crowd (40:03):
This never happens.
I feel like I haveto resign now.

I know, I know you're doing
fine, you're doing fine.
So yeah, this is wild actually.
So it turned out that, uh,Wingstop's stock is actually
the, the one that really,that roughly tripled during
this period, uh, sort oflike a downstream effect
of just people being crazyabout chicken in general.
So other chains like Popeye'sdid, and McDonald's saw stock
prices increase, but theywere generally more modest

(40:30):
in the range of 10 to 30%.
That was a tricky one.
Uh, all right.
You don't worry, Alice.
You got a chanceto come back here.
Okay.
This, this third round isabout sort of bizarre and wild
stories around the, you'llsee what I mean very soon.
All right.
Statement number one, a man inTennessee sued Popeye's for 5,
000 for false advertising anddeceptive business practices.

(40:53):
After repeating, repeatedlyfailing to get a sandwich and
the case settled out of court.
Number two, someone triedto sell a Popeye's chicken
sandwich on eBay for 10, 000.
Okay.
That one did not sell, butones listed in the hundreds
of dollars did sell.
Number three, the popularityof chicken sandwiches during
the wars led to a noticeablesurge in the number of people

(41:15):
naming their pet chickensPopeye or Chick fil a.
Now, two of theseare actually true.
Here we go.
Your answer in three, two, one.
Okay.
Guess what?
Ladies and gentlemen.
So Alice has guessedthat that one is false.

(41:35):
The, the suing Popeye'sand Rajeev guess that,
uh, three is false.
No, no, two.
You said, oh, you said two.
You said two.
Okay.
Two is false.
The eBay one.
Ladies and gentlemen, we haveourselves a tie because Alice,
you, yes, you got it right.
It turns out you're,you're back in the game.
You're back in the game.
Uh, it turns out.

(41:56):
A Tennessee man did SuePopeyes for 5,000, but it
did not settle out of court.
It, it was thrown out.
It was a . It, it did not.
So that, so there, thereis a guy that did Sue,
but it just, he didn'twin or anything like that.
Um, so Popeyes went,

Popeyes, refused to buckle down and
just write the guy a check.

Yeah.
Yeah.
Can you believe that?
And then, yeah, someone didlist, uh, on eBay for 10,
000 and that one didn't sell.
And but people did list andthey did sell, usually it
was for the meme is what, iswhat people are finding out.
Is that like, howmuch did they sell?
A hundreds?
They bought, yeah.
Like, like a hundreddollar one and they would,
um, apparently sell it.
And then, you know,like cancel the order.

(42:32):
They probably did it to,for, for social media
because I don't think youcan deliver a sandwich.
So yes.
Okay.
We've got a tiebreaker.
Okay.
All right.
These are the shenanigansthat happen in line.
And if you answer the samenumber, I'm going to force
Rajiv to, to pick anothernumber so that we definitely
have a definitive winner.
Here we go.
Number one, a Popeye's employeein Texas was fired for selling

(42:53):
a place in line for 30.
Number two, someone in Floridaattempted to cut in line at a
Popeye's by claiming a, to bean undercover police officer.
And number three, a couplein Maryland got married
in a Popeye's drive thru.
Two of these are true,one of these is false.
I don't know, theyall sound true.

(43:15):
They all sound plausible.
They all sound plausible.
Come on.
Alright, ready?
Three, two, one.
Two one revealyou both said one.
Okay.
So rajiv you

got to pick another one.
I mean My mom is so goodat cutting in lines.
So I you know, I justkind of figured like yeah
She never sees the line.
She just goes to the front.
All right, i'm gonna go for

three Well, guess what?
This actually worked out inyour favor this time because
yes, it's true Rajiv, yougot it, right number three
is the false one A couple inMaryland didn't get married in a
Popeye's drive thru, but Alice,um, it did sound believable
because a couple in Marylandgot engaged in a Popeye's

drive thru.
I mean, when I was atDenny's, we had a wedding

at Denny's.
So that means, that's whyshe thought it was plausible.
So much passion for theGrand Slam, wasn't, you
had an innovation inthere, the Grand Slam.

Build your own Grand Slam.

Build your own Grand Slam.
Oh, the Build YourOwn Grand Slam.
That's very cool.
That's very cool.
So Alice is definitelylike the super marketing
promoter innovator.

I just like

food.
Well, unfortunately, uh, our,our guests did not win this one.
Um, but, uh, don't worry.
Rajiv is still a chicken.
Okay.
Thanks

for playing.
So, uh, if I could ask a couplemore questions, I know we're
kind of at the end of time.
What got you into what,what sparked you to
go after marketing andmarketing innovation?
So while you're sittingthere, uh, Acting, you were at
Duke and you were working onthese great stories, uh, you
know, uh, creative writing.
What made you say, you knowwhat, I, did you foresee

(44:54):
yourself, I'm going tobe a CMO innovating for
the hot meal segment?

Um, no, it's even worse than English major.
I was English major witha concentration in poetry
and, and then we got myminor in women's studies.
So my parents were convincedthat I was going to be living
in a box down by the river.
But when I got out of collegeand and they were very clear
that I wasn't coming home um,one of the things that I could

(45:21):
do was write and I got hiredas a temp job at a Automotive
aftermarket company and the ceowas really small company wanted
to write some white papers Andand gave me a shot at it and
was surprised that I could writeand I started just doing writing
for him and three months in thisis the arrogance and stupidity

(45:42):
of a 21 year old he broughtme in and said what is it that
you want to do with your life?
and I still wanted to go tonew york and be a writer and
have You know scandalous loveaffairs and have a column and
do whatever But um, but I wasalso watching melrose place the
old remember the old melroseplay show And uh, and the one
of the lead characters was alady named amanda and she was

(46:02):
she ran a marketing shop so Iwas like, I would like to be a
cmo and He said, you know what?
I'll give you six months andif you can You Move the needle.
I'll increase yoursalary from 17, 000 And
if not, I'll fire you.
And we'll just havedrinks sometime.
Um, and it justworked out from there.
And so it's very entrepreneurialand self taught at the beginning

(46:24):
of, hey, we need a brochure.
Hey, we need a radio commercial.
We need some product design.
And then when the companywas purchased by Pennzoil
Quaker State, the gentlemanin charge of M& A kind of took
me under his wing and gaveme the foundational pieces of
marketing and started teachingme the theory and then went
back and got my MBA and it allkind of just built on itself.

That's

fantastic.
I love that

story.
Yeah, there's no waste,you know, nothing goes
to waste in life, I find.
Uh, if you find a way to pullin all your experience and
create values, it's very cool.
And it's cool that

you get the serendipity of that in life and
something just pops in your wayand it just catches your energy.
Yeah.
I think in, in our earlierquestionnaire, we asked you
to name a historical event ormovement that inspires you.
And you mentionedaviator, Beryl Markham.
What about her lights you up?

I read her autobiography.
Gosh, when I was in college,it's called West with the night.
Um, first of all,beautifully written.
Hemingway once said that he,that reading her work made
him feel like an amateur.
He was just disgusted withhimself after he read her,
but she had this life.
Where whatever came in frontof her she grabbed it so,

(47:37):
uh, her mother died young.
Her father moved her to Africawhere he worked out in the bush,
farming and raising horses.
So she grew up with them aside,children, hunting lions and, um,
and and being part of the tribe.
She went on from there toraise racehorses, um, for,
uh, and train racehorsesfor folks in Africa.

(47:59):
And then planes werejust coming to Africa.
She learned how to fly.
She was the first person tofly across continents, um,
in addition to being thefirst woman and was able to
communicate those experienceswith such a, a high and
beautiful command of thelanguage and the experience.
But I always thought,wow, to just.
No matter where life putsyou, like, figure it out and

(48:23):
raise it to an art level.
I mean, what betterfuture could you hope for?

Right.
It's like, choose the mostaudacious thing you could do.
Yeah,

and do it beautifully.

Okay, so how about this one?
If money was no object, whatwould you do for an alternate
job in an alternate universe?

I would write.
I would get a little flatsomewhere where I could walk
around and see really coolstuff to inspire me and,
and I would try to bringthose experiences and that
beauty to a wider audiencethrough, through written work.

Do you ever write in your spare time?
Do you ever get yournovel cooking on?

Not as much as I used to, but, um, it is, it's
a way of centering my mind.
It calmed me.
Um, so a lot of times,especially if there's something
I want to process, I'll just sitdown and try to make a poem out
of it or story out of it or, orsomething, because it helps me.
Kind of put it to bed, becauseonce you've captured the
language, there's this poem byAudrey and Rich diving into the

(49:21):
wreck, and I keep the, I keepa segment of it on my computer,
and it says something like wordsor purposes, words or maps, uh,
I came to see the damage thatwas done, but also the treasure
that prevailed, and I thinkthat the process of writing and
dissecting your experiences andfiguring out What combination

(49:43):
of of wreck and treasure youhave is just it's the best of
puzzle solving I love that.
I love

that Yeah, I just as you just as you
figure out the combinationof spicy mayo and Krispy
chicken and Exactly.

100 percent.
Yes

I I must say I I relate to you in the same way.
I I am whenever i'm moststressed or down or In dealing
with a difficult situation, thebest thing is to sit down and
write, and, and whoever wouldread those writings would say,
this guy's nuts, he's rantingand raving, but actually, it
actually gets you to thinkthrough your thoughts, process

(50:20):
your thoughts, and then there'sthat turnaround moment, just
like any other story, justlike a story where you're like,
there's a conflict, and thenyou, how do you get through it?
And that comes out in thewriting after writing about it,

it's like cleaning up your room, right?
You go into a mess.
And you slowly get it putinto something useful or at
least finished and you can putit on the shelf and move on.

That's right.
There's a hygiene to it.
There's like amental hygiene tip to

doing it.

So Alice, I was, yeah, I was inspired by,
uh, talking with you today.
I love great CMOs like yourself.
You really, you teach us alot and I like how you get
involved in the product.
So deeply in the productas much or more than
the promotion, right?
Cause the product reallydrives everything,
the entire experience.
And I just love that.

(51:06):
I love that about you.
So I really enjoy meeting withyou today and talking with you.
My, no, my listeners willlearn a ton from you.

Well, it's been a delight.
Thank you guys so much.
Really appreciate the timeand letting me talk about
my favorite subject, whichis my delicious chicken.

All right.
Thanks for listening.
If you enjoyed the pod,please take a moment
to rate it and comment.
You can find us on Apple,Spotify, YouTube, and everywhere

Sandeep (51:41):
podcasts can be found.
This show is produced by SandeepShah, production assistance
by Taryn Talley, and editedby Sean Maher and Aiden

McGarvey.

I'm your host, Rajiv

Parikh from Position Squared, a top notch
growth marketing companybased in Silicon Valley.
Come visit us at position2.
com.

This has been an effin funny production.

We'll catch you next time.
And remember folks,be ever curious.

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Secret Sauce of CMOs/Alice Crowder - Chicken Sandwich Wars, Segmentation, Hedonistic Index ~ Spark of Ages Ep 25

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Secret Sauce of CMOs/Alice Crowder - Chicken Sandwich Wars, Segmentation, Hedonistic Index ~ Spark of Ages Ep 25