Virtually All Internal and Consumer-Facing Touch Points to be Impacted
In front of a standing-room-only crowd at a San Antonio conference center, domestic and international franchisees and operational leadership from Church’s Chicken and its sister chain, Texas Chicken, came together for only the second time in the history of the brands to learn how the company will strategically reposition itself moving forward. The unveiling of the brand positioning work was a highlight moment during the recent 2018 Global Excellence in Leadership Conference.
“We are one brand serving a very similar menu but we are in distinctly different stages of our life cycles. Our domestic roots go back 66 years, but our international footprint has really just started to take off in the past few years,” said Hector Munoz, Executive Vice President & Global Chief Marketing Officer. “This brand positioning work is rooted in our history and embraces who we are. It’s relevant and adaptable to both Church’s and Texas Chicken. We are a Texas-grown brand and the research indicates we need to embrace that in a big way.” Munoz noted that while the essence of both brands is rooted from the same place, they will be expressed differently for the Texas Chicken brand in Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere to better express its own unique equities.
“We are riding a surge of global momentum,” Munoz noted. “Globally, we’ve introduced over 70 new limited time only products (LTOs) this year. Our global year-over-year comparative sales are up – the best performance of its kind in more than 10 years. We’re looking at 12 consecutive periods of positive sales. Even more impressively, we’ve accomplished 5 consecutive quarters of positive sales on a global level. That kind of performance shows that this brand is ready to claim its place on the world stage where it belongs… and with thorough research guiding us, we’ve developed the positioning to make it happen.”
“Consumers provided us the permissibility of where we can and cannot go. We will use those insights to guide everything we do moving forward,” Munoz said.
“This initiative was a massive and intensely collaborative effort that tapped into the insights of our franchisees, capitalized on the talented cross functional expertise of our domestic and international teams, as well as engaged some of the brightest research, design and advertising agency minds of our valued strategic partners,” said Tony Moralejo, Executive Vice President of International for the brands.
“We’re tremendously excited to have created a robust, clear, fact-based vision for the brand experience across all consumer touchpoints, and we’re now engaged in bringing that new brand experience to life for our Church’s and Texas Chicken guests around the world.”
“The new global brand position is the fulfillment of a promise our company leadership made to our franchisee stakeholders a year ago – to deliver stronger and more impactful messaging and experiences that would clearly articulate what the brands stand for both Domestically and Internationally,” Moralejo said.
Moralejo and Munoz both noted that the positioning would roll out a total brand transformation, including everything from training and recruitment and service delivery to advertising, uniforms, packaging and product innovation. International locations will likely see a restaurant design change in the future, as well.
“Our current and future business is leveraging effective positioning to WIN in a highly competitive marketplace. That’s the springboard that makes the global brand work,” Munoz concluded.
CESO & Clear, the two global brand positioning and experience agencies who led the project, also worked collaboratively with Church’s Chicken’s domestic Agency of Record, JWT Atlanta, and Church’s and Texas Chicken franchisees to develop the positioning roadmap for the future. Consumers will see output from the brand work as it is unveiled later this year with an evolution of the creative and other elements to follow shortly thereafter.
Founded in San Antonio, TX in 1952 by George W. Church, Church’s Chicken, along with its sister brand Texas Chicken outside of the Americas, is one of the largest quick service chicken restaurant chains in the world. The brands specialize in Original and Spicy Chicken freshly prepared throughout the day in small batches that are hand-battered and double-breaded, Tender Strips, sandwiches, honey-butter biscuits made from scratch and freshly baked, and classic, home-style sides all for a great value. Church’s Chicken and Texas Chicken have more than 1,500 locations in 23 countries and global markets and system-wide sales of more than $1 billion. For more information, visit www.churchs.com. Follow Church’s on Facebook at www.facebook.com/churchschicken and Twitter at www.twitter.com/churchschicken.
