KFC builds finger-lickin’ good digital experiences with Contentful

Introduction

If you were driving along Interstate 75 in the 1930s and hunger struck, you’d pull into the nearest roadside restaurant expecting something edible, but not altogether enjoyable. If you happened to be near Corbin, Kentucky, however, you’d be in for a treat. Within the walls of a Pure Oil filling station sporting six dining tables, you’d find a young Colonel Harland David Sanders serving up the very best fried chicken — and the humble beginnings of KFC. 

A whole lot has changed for the sit-down turned quick-service restaurant. It has joined the ranks of Taco Bell and Pizza Hut as a member of the Yum! Brands family with 29,000+ franchise locations in 150 countries and all 50 U.S. states. What hasn’t changed? The brand’s commitment to serving a finger-lickin’ good experience, which influences everything from how team members prepare signature dishes — the chicken always made by hand, following the Colonel's original recipe — to customer interactions and internal operations.

As diners seek faster, increasingly digital ways to get their hands on the brand’s crispy goodness, the company has been ramping up for another change: marrying physical and digital content and serving it on the channels most frequented by customers.

“One of our biggest challenges has been moving from a traditional heritage brand to something more modern, relevant, and iconic. By stepping up these ambitions, we knew we had to step up our technology,” Ashley Travis, Sr. Director of Digital Experience & Product Growth at KFC Global, said. It was time for KFC to fly the coop on its old way of managing digital content. 

With a track record for revamping digital experiences at companies such as Pepsico, Starbucks, and Amazon, Travis was uniquely qualified to spearhead this transformation. She had a hunch that a headless content management would offer KFC a more user-friendly way to create content, which country-specific markets could scale in implementation as they grew. Following this hunch, the brand adopted Contentful.

Feasting its eyes on a new platform

Before re-platforming, KFC’s digital experiences were inconsistent and costly to maintain. Market and franchise-specific websites had been built from the same initial template, but customized to such an extent that they lacked any real consistency. With the content of these sites hardcoded, markets and franchises were forced to set aside resources for development support any time they wanted to add new content or make an update. For larger markets that could afford this expenditure, the absence of autonomy was an annoyance. For smaller markets and new franchise owners with less cash flow, this investment was out of the question. 

This setup led to a lag in up to date and personalized content across digital channels. As customers scoured the digital sphere for the latest promotion, seasonal offerings (like the limited edition Summer BBQ Chicken Sandwich), and local delicacies (such as Japan’s Egg Tart or the Philippines’s Double Down Dog) they came away empty-handed.

Bringing everyone to the table with a unified, accessible solution

In 2020, Travis and her colleagues started searching for a content management tool to support this project — ideally something headless. “It was important that we have a content solution that could flex to the needs and digital maturity of our various global markets as it would be in the hands of both teams with development resources and those who had never touched a CMS before,” Travis pointed out, referencing the platform’s ability to serve as the base for growing, interchangeable tech stacks.

After submitting requests for proposals to several well-known vendors, a front-runner emerged: Contentful. In addition to sporting a decoupled architecture, the composable content platform offered capabilities that addressed KFC’s most pressing needs. It offered reliable global support and was well–liked by digital teams. For technical team members the appeal was rooted in flexibility, for the nontechnical, it was the platform's user-friendly editorial interface. 

After procuring the tool and completing a proof of concept, KFC Global, KFC U.S., and KFC Australia collaborated to set it up. They spent several months carefully defining and building preliminary content models and content types before onboarding the first wave of markets. In 2022, Australia kicked off the incremental migration, becoming the first region to host its website and app on Contentful. 

Localizing content to keep customers coming back for more

In 2023, India, Canada, and South Africa joined Australia on the platform. This scaled adoption offered the brand an opportunity to battle-test its content models, ensuring they struck the proper balance between consistency and customization.

“As a brand that shows up differently across markets, we hoped to develop a framework that standardizes certain elements without robbing markets of the opportunity to connect with customers through more localized content,” Travis noted.

Content types housing universally applicable information could not be altered locally and was consistent across the four regions. Meanwhile, each market has the option to customize its menu, homepage content, and other areas of the site to reflect local offerings, promotions, and preferences. 

“We're seeing a lot of creativity come out of our new tech stack. For example, a lot of our Australia locations have secret menu items — these offerings are built by team members who create their own twists on KFC classics,” Travis said, rehashing the delight and surprise customers get from such out-of-the-box creations such as poutine.

Customizable content is even shrinking the time it takes customers to go from checking out to chowing down. Markets and franchises can set a default at checkout — delivery or pick-up, which aligns with local preferences to effectively eliminate one step of the buyer’s journey. For example, in Australia, the default for online ordering is in-store pickup whereas in India, it’s delivery. 

Delivering deep-fried goodness to every channel

The brand consistency that KFC is enjoying extends across other digital channels. With Contentful, KFC has been able to utilize the same content across its web and mobile experience, effectively eliminating the excessive copy-and-paste processes otherwise required to manage such content. In the future, the company plans to extend this use case to digital drive-thru signs and in-store kiosks. 

This consistency in branding and accuracy of product offerings is encouraging more customers than ever before to make purchases through digital channels. In fact, this is accounting for a 43% increase in YOY transactions. 

By moving in-person ordering to online spaces, restaurant team members can spend more time focusing on cooking quality meals and making meaningful connections as they serve them.

Adding “sides” for a richer tech stack and digital experience

At adoption, the company integrated its custom-built ecommerce platform to create a one-stop shop for marketing its products and processing orders. Over the past few months, KFC Global’s Ecommerce team has been adding new tools — several from the Contentful Marketplace —  to accelerate business outcomes and sales.

Integrations include Amplify and Google Analytics 4, which are used for data analytics and optimization. FullStory provides customer journey mapping, Datadog — site reliability, Branch — deep linking, and Braze — customer engagement.

Together, this tech stack gives KFC a snapshot of what areas of its digital experiences keep customers engaged and ordering, and which areas could use improvement. Since implementing and iterating content to align with its data, the company has been able to increase both its digital sales and menu-to-cart conversion rates. 

Continuing to march to the beat of a digital-first drum(stick)

With a reliable platform and the bones of a scalable digital strategy in place, Travis and her team are onto the next courses: continuing to migrate new markets to the platform (including Thailand and Japan), optimizing its implementation to increase flexibility further, and rolling out new digital offerings focused on increasing customer loyalty and engagement. 

Though tight-lipped on the 11 herbs and spices that season the company’s standout chicken, Travis did provide more details on KFC’s “top secret” content initiatives. In November 2023, KFC began rolling out its new loyalty program, KFC Rewards. Built entirely on Contentful, the program features local promotions, challenges, and exclusive menu offerings, and is another avenue for KFC customers to interact with the brand and reap new benefits each time they buy a bucket of chicken. Customers in Canada and South America will be the first to enjoy the new app, with Japan and Thailand to follow. Travis envisions a future where KFC rewards are integrated with in-store digital kiosks to streamline in-store purchases further and lay the foundation for more personalized content. 

“Contentful has the capabilities and potential to power and personalize content across customer touchpoints and segments — whether the customer is some guy looking for a double-stacked tower from his mobile phone or a family of six ordering buckets at the drive-thru,” Travis said with excitement. 

With the exception of its original recipe, KFC plans to continue iterating and extending its core digital experience to keep modern customers engaging and eager to order.