Tag: Big Employers

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KFC puts $218M U.S. advertising media buying account up for grabs; Papa John’s loses Rupp Arena rights, and more drama engulfs UofL Foundation

A news summary focused on 10 big employers; updated 3:23 p.m.

KFC is looking for more bang for its bucks in a just-launched review of its U.S. spending for advertising and marketing across all channels, including print, broadcast, digital and social media. The review, which in theory could end with the chicken-chain keeping its current agency for the work — ad and marketing giant WPP’s MEC unit — doesn’t include creative work now being done by Wieden & Kennedy since 2015; that agency is responsible for the current campaign of rotating actors and comedians portraying a resurrected Colonel Harland Sanders. KFC’s U.S. division said it’s looking for an agency “capable of deploying innovative media strategies while leveraging cost efficiencies and maximizing return on investment” (AdAge). KFC just launched its latest Sanders TV commercials, featuring a fictional Kentucky Buckets pro football team.

PAPA JOHN’S has given up concession rights at Rupp Arena in Lexington starting this fall, and will be replaced by Hunt Brothers Pizza (Herald-Leader).

jack-daniels-150th-anniversary-whiskeyBROWN-FORMAN‘s Jack Daniel’s has unveiled a new version to celebrate its major birthday this year: Jack Daniel’s 150th Anniversary Whiskey, which is priced around $100 per one-liter bottle (The Whiskey Wash). Jack Daniel’s is the top seller among Brown-Forman’s 19 brands of spirits and wine.

UPS: Utah is giving UPS $5 million in tax incentives for the shipper’s plan to build a $200 million regional package operations center at a yet-to-be-determined site in the state that will create nearly 200 jobs (Salt Lake Tribune). UPS is the single-biggest private employer in Louisville, with 22,000 workers at it Louisville International Airport hub.

TEXAS ROADHOUSE is opening a Bubba’s 33 in east of Dallas in Mesquite as the Louisville-based steakhouse chain expands its new sports bar division. First launched in Fayetteville, N.C., in 2013, there are now a dozen Bubba’s locations, including outlets in Houston and Waco (Culture Map Dallas).

In other news: the University of Louisville board of trustees, escalating its battle with the independent UofL Foundation, today approved a threat to sue the foundation unless it accedes to demands to clean up its act. Board of Trustees Chairman Larry Benz said as many as 70 donors have called the university over the past few days to say they won’t give any more money unless the foundation shows that it is “clean” (Courier-Journal). Those donors’ threats followed similar ones last week by the James Graham Brown Foundation and the C.E. & S. Foundation led by Humana co-founder David A. Jones Sr.

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KFC’s new extra-crispy marketing recipe revealed! Big name + bizarre thing = smell of success

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 9:43 a.m.

KFC‘s latest publicity stunt — fried chicken-scented sunscreen — zigged in the U.S. from People magazine, then zagged to the U.K.’s Marie Claire, rolling up untold millions of dollars in free PR over the past 48 hours since its brief Monday launch. And it all involved just 3,000 bottles of a fake product never meant to get into consumer’s hands, according to trade site DigiDay.

KFC sunscreen 75Google News counted nearly 100 websites mentioning KFC Extra Crispy Sunscreen. Huffington Post’s story had 3,100 shares. The retro promotional infomercial video got nearly 280,000 views since it was posted on YouTube. And it won 11,000 mentions on social media, said Brandwatch analyst Kellan Terry.

The campaign was by the W+K agency in Portland, Ore., and followed the same formula W+K used for another client: Old Spice. “Its irreverent and unconventional,” Terry said, “and people love to laugh and watch the ad as it unfolds. These types of spots are tailored for multiple platform success.” And it paired perfectly with fake Colonel Harland “Extra Crispy” Sanders, played by actor-turned-pro tanner George Hamilton (photo, top).

The sunblock gimmick followed KFC’s two edible nail varnishes — flavored Original and Hot and Spicy — released in Hong Kong back in May.

TACO BELL is once more in the very unwelcome spotlight after reports employees refused to serve law enforcement officers. The latest incident, involving five Louisville Metro Police officers, comes amid a summer of rising tensions between police and the public.

The one in Louisville happened last week at the Taco Bell at Preston Highway and Phillips Lane, when the officers were taking a work break from duty at the Kentucky State Fair. One employee told co-workers he wouldn’t take the officers’ order, though another worker did eventually take the order, according to Sgt. Dave Mutchler, president of the River City FOP union representing officers.

“However, in the meantime,” Mutchler wrote in an e-mail, “another employee stated to a co-worker ‘I want to mess with them. I want to mess with them. I’m going to mess with them. I’m going to mess with them.'” Seeing no manager, the officers left.

Both Taco Bell and the Louisville franchise owner apologized to Louisville Metro Police and directly to the officers. The franchise owner says police made it clear they didn’t want any of the employees fired, and said he would retrain staff (Courier-Journal and WKYT).

The incident echoed one last month in Phenix City, Ala., where a Taco Bell clerk wouldn’t serve two sheriff’s deputies after another customer complained about the officers being there. The employee was fired and the chain apologized to the deputies and to the sheriff’s office. But there have been others involving cops:

  • In Toledo, Ohio, last week, a sheriff’s deputy was fired after making inappropriate Facebook posts about Taco Bell employees he said made vulgar remarks about him. One post said a black employee and a co-worker inside the restaurant yelled “Black lives matter,” and laughed at him while he was in his car in the drive-thru. The deputy was in uniform at the time.
  • A KFC employee in Missouri was fired early this month after reportedly threatening to spit in a Franklin County sheriff’s deputy’s order.

UPS: In Richmond, Va., the shipper says it plans to lay off 160 workers from its UPS Freight unit there within the next 12 months in a cost-cutting move. News reports didn’t give a total headcount there, however (Times-Dispatch).

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Music to our ears: Pizza Hut U.K. offering five boxes doubling as playable DJ decks; today-only giveaway is latest to capture more young techie consumers

A news summary focused on 10 big employers; updated 2:37 p.m.

PIZZA HUT: Using Bluetooth to connect a computer or smartphone, the playable cardboard decks mix digital music using a special conductive ink design from printed electronics specialist Novalia, according to Digital Spy. (Watch DJ Vectra demo it in the video, above.) Starting today, the pizza maker is offering them in a promotion rolling out via the @PizzaHutUK Twitter feed, where it will announce which of only five restaurants will have one box each. The decks feature two turntables, a cross-fader, pitch volumes, cue buttons and the ability to rewind music, all like traditional mixers. What’s a deck?

Watch DJ Vectra demo it in the video, above; he’s playing “P Money 10/10,” according to music and media identification app Shazam.

This isn’t the first Yum unit to create electronic packaging to grab the attention of technology-loving young consumers. In June, KFC India gave away Watt a Box, a 5-in-1 meal box with a lithium-ion battery cellphone charger. The chicken chain has also fitted photo printers inside buckets and Bluetooth keyboards onto paper tray covers.

Today’s promo will surely boost U.K.’s Twitter traffic. Right now, its feed has 53,700 followers. The U.S. site has far, far more: 1.46 million; how other companies’ Twitter count compares. Pizza Hut teased customers about the cardboard gadget via Twitter yesterday:

HAIER, which bought GE Appliances in June, is pumping about $10 million into 9KaCha, a Chinese wine information app and e-commerce platform whose database and label recognition software will power its new smart wine cooler. It’s unclear whether the cooler will be offered in the U.S. (China Money Network and Decanter China).

HUMANA: Insurance companies “keep pretending” that participating in the Affordable Care Act exchanges is killing their business model, says Haider Javed Warraich, a cardiovascular disease fellow at Duke University’s Medical Center, in a Guardian newspaper column today. Humana merger partner Aetna was the latest, announcing late Monday it will withdraw from 70% of the Obamacare exchange markets where it operates by next year, including 10 Kentucky counties. Humana disclosed a similar pullback earlier this month. But, Warraich writes, “this corporate hardship story couldn’t be further from the truth. Aetna’s overall profits surged last year, and its share prices have risen consistently since the ACA passed in 2010” (Guardian).

Humana and Aetna logos 250Aetna’s Kentucky exit leaves consumers in Boone, Campbell, Owen and Kenton counties with only two exchange plans. Other counties affected are Continue reading “Music to our ears: Pizza Hut U.K. offering five boxes doubling as playable DJ decks; today-only giveaway is latest to capture more young techie consumers” →

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UnitedHealthcare protests $40.5B Humana contract; Roadhouse dives 12% on Q2 report; Trump eats KFC with metal utensils — Internet howls; and Taco Bell workers in Calif. gone after cop-taunting report

A news summary focused on 10 big employers; updated 5:09 p.m.

HUMANA: UnitedHealthcare has filed a formal protest against a Defense Department decision to award the next round of Tricare contracts to Humana and another competitor. The Pentagon selected Humana Government Business to manage the brand new East region, a consolidation of the North and South regions, in a contract worth as much as $40.5 billion. Health Net Federal Services got the West region contract. Humana manages the current South region and Health Net the North (Military Times).

Humana and Aetna logos 250Also, Humana and Aetna announced this morning a deal to sell some of their Medicare Advantage assets to Molina Healthcare for $117 million in cash, in the health insurers’ latest effort to win Justice Department approval for their proposed $37 billion merger. The transactions are subject to the successful completion of the merger, plus approvals from regulators. Under the deal, Molina would get about 290,000 Medicare Advantage members in 21 states, the two companies said, “preserving robust competition for seniors choosing to receive Medicare coverage through Medicare Advantage plans and addressing a key concern of the U.S. Department of Justice in its challenge to the Aetna-Humana transaction” (press release). Today’s announcement followed a July 21 DOJ lawsuit against the two companies to block their tie-up over fears it would be anticompetitive and raise consumer prices.

Aetna, meanwhile, reported better-than-expected second-quarter results this morning, in a report where it also became the last of the five major national health insurers to project a loss on Affordable Care Act plans for 2016. The Hartford-based insurer said it would re-evaluate its participation in the business and cancel a planned expansion. It also said it was setting up a $65 million reserve to account for expected losses on individual plans over the rest of this year (Wall Street Journal).

Kent Taylor
Taylor

TEXAS ROADHOUSE shares fell sharply, closing at $41.80, down 12.4%, or $5.90, after the Louisville-based steakhouse chain reported disappointing second-quarter results yesterday after stock markets had already closed (Google Finance). Founder and CEO Kent Taylor discussed the results with Wall Street analysts in a transcript (Seeking Alpha). The chain has nearly 500 company-owned and franchised restaurants in 49 states plus five foreign countries with 48,000 employees. About 500 of those workers are in Louisville; more about Texas Roadhouse.

FORD said total truck sales, including pickups and vans, grew 5% in July versus a year ago with 87,104 sold. Overall company U.S. sales were down 3%, with 216,479 total vehicles sold (press release). Shares closed at $11.94, down 4.3%, or 53 cents (Google Finance). Ford’s Kentucky Truck Factory employs about 5,100 workers, producing F-250 and F-550 Super Duty pickups, plus Expeditions, and Lincoln Navigators.

KFC: The World Wide Web is chowing down on a photo of GOP White House nominee Donald Trump eating a KFC meal last night aboard his gold-plated private jet, using real cutlery (as opposed to the plastic utensils most everyone else uses or, let’s be clear, hands). Trump tweeted a photo of the moment near 10:30 p.m.; see Tweet, above. “It’s tiny finger lickin’ good,” wrote the New York Daily News, which then went on to quote one Twitter user saying: “Eating KFC with a fork and knife is like eating a candy bar with chopsticks.”

Britain’s Telegraph was even more over-the-top pretend aghast: “What kind of madman — what kind of abominable lizard in an orange human skin suit, a Sunny Delight scare story incarnate — would eat a biscuit with a knife and fork? The same madman who was last night pictured eating a bucket of KFC with a knife and fork, that’s who.” And then there was the whole KFC vs. Popeyes vs. Bojangles’ contretemps (Daily News, Telegraph and Daily Caller). Here’s yet more news coverage — plus, all the Twitter reaction.

TACO BELL: In California, several employees in northwest Bakersfield no longer work at a Taco Bell there after reports they had taunted a local police officer last week, according to the manager of the outlet. A customer had told a local TV station he could hear the employees making “oink oink” sounds and laughing while the officer was ordering. The manager said the employees no longer work there; he could not say how many employees were involved (Kern Golden Empire).

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Roadhouse whiffs Q2 sales, and shares plunge 8%; McD done with antibiotics-fed chicken; Kindred closes $39M Arkansas deal; and Pizza Hut workers in S.C. score $50 touchdown

A news summary focused on 10 big employers; updated 8:11 p.m.

TEXAS ROADHOUSE said today it missed second-quarter revenue estimates, and also disclosed that same-store sales in the current quarter had slowed vs. Q2. The results were released after markets closed. In after-hours trading, shares tumbled 7.9% to $43.94. The Louisville-based steakhouse chain said earnings were 47 cents per share on revenue of $508.8 million. Wall Street had forecast EPS of 45 cents and $509.8 million in revenue (Investors Business Daily and press release). Today’s report came less than a week after several analysts downgraded Roadhouse’s stock, sending shares down 6%.

KFC bucket of chickenKFC: Raising pressure on KFC to follow suit, McDonald’s said today it’s completely stopped buying chickens raised with antibiotics meant for humans, a step completed months ahead of schedule. The chain previously estimated the change would be completed by March 2017 (CNBC). The longtime KFC critic on the issue, the Natural Resources Defense Council, reiterated its call for the Yum unit to stop buying from chicken suppliers using antibiotics. “KFC,” the group said today, “stands out as the signature chicken purveyor that is far behind” (NRDC).

KINDRED and the Arkansas Department of Health said they had completed a previously announced agreement for the Louisville hospital and nursing company to buy the state agency’s in-home health care operations for about $39 million. The deal includes licenses to provide home health, hospice and personal care services throughout the state. Kindred won the award through a bidding process (press release).

AMAZON shares shot up to a new record high today — $770.50, up 1.5% — before closing lower at $767.74. The retailer’s stock is now up 43% from a year ago vs. a much smaller 3% for the broader S&P 500 index (Google Finance). Amazon employs 6,000 workers in the Louisville area at mammoth distribution centers in Jeffersonville, and in Bullitt County’s Shepherdsville. (More about Amazon.)

Ford DAV car
One of the newest DAV vans.

FORD received a city building permit today to proceed with $14 million of planned improvements at its Kentucky Truck Plant on Chamberlain Lane (Courier-Journal). Also today, the automaker said it donated another eight vans to the DAV Transportation Network, a volunteer group that takes ill and disabled veterans to VA medical centers across the country. The automaker said today it has now given 207 vehicles to the group over the past 20 years; the program dates back 94 years to when founder Henry Ford provided Model Ts as transportation for disabled vets (press release). In Louisville, Ford employs nearly 10,000 at its truck and vehicle assembly factories; more about its local operations.

Cam Newton
Newton

PIZZA HUT employees in Spartanburg, S.C., didn’t learn the mysterious customer in black who showed up 15 minutes after closing time for a cheese pizza was Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton until after he’d driven away. But he did leave a big tip last Thursday, paying $50 for the pie. “It definitely came in handy,” manager Amanda McCluney told WCNC, “because I was actually short $50 because I’m moving and I needed that to go towards my U-Haul and my storage unit” (WCNC).

In other news, U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell said there’s a “great likelihood” that he’ll seek a seventh term in 2020. “I’m at the top of my game,” McConnell, 74, told WKYT in Lexington. “I think I’ve been effective in serving our people, and there’s a great likelihood I’ll run again” (Associated Press via ABC). In office since 1985, the Republican is Kentucky’s longest-serving U.S. senator (Wikipedia).