Group photo of marketers from across Yum!'s four brands, who visited the Collider office to learn from the agency in summer 2023.
The Collider Lab isn’t a typical marketing strategy agency. Collider is a strategy, branding and innovation company – a think tank made up of social scientists, marketing strategists, cultural trend forecasters and data gurus. Since Yum! Brands acquired Collider in 2015, marketing effectiveness at Yum! has surged as the R.E.D. marketing system (Relevance, Ease, Distinctiveness) has been introduced inside many of its 59,000 global restaurants and beyond.
Collider acts as a master aggregator of marketing discoveries for the entire company, cracking the toughest branding challenges, figuring out what is working around the world and creating repeatable models to implement everywhere.
A recent project that showcased the collaboration between Collider and the brands was the Cantina Chicken launch at Taco Bell U.S. During the second quarter 2024 earnings call, Yum! Brands CEO David Gibbs spoke of the success of the product launch.
“Second-quarter results most clearly showcased the power of the Taco Bell brand thanks to unmatched, crave-worthy innovation and a successful menu expansion to a new platform offering, Cantina Chicken,” he said.
Collider Co-Founder and Vice President of Marketing & Innovation Strategy Greg Dzurik discussed the launch of Cantina Chicken and more during a recent interview.
What is the origination of the name “Collider”?
It was inspired by the book “Where Good Ideas Come From,” by Steven Johnson, which talks about how great ideas come from a diverse group of minds coming together, or colliding. The whole idea of Collider is that we want to constantly collaborate with a diverse group of people and disciplines both inside the agency and outside. One of the things that is unique about the way we operate is we are constantly collaborating with outside experts. It’s all about the constant collision of ideas.
While Collider is owned by Yum!, you have other clients as well, correct?
I would say that 75% of our projects are devoted to Yum!. The whole reason we were acquired is that we were this relatively small shop, and we were working with Taco Bell. And then, KFC was knocking at our door. We had to keep turning Yum! projects down because we didn’t have the hours. So, the acquisition was all about having more Collider resources available to Yum!. But there are many advantages to working with other clients and brands, many from Fortune 500 companies. It allows us to gain a lot of topic knowledge, and also see culture and trends from a lot of different angles. That is a huge benefit to our brands.
It wouldn’t feel like a marketing agency if there weren’t some words of wisdom prominently displayed.
What kind of impact did the Yum! acquisition have on Collider?
As I said, the whole reason for the acquisition was to get more resources allocated for Yum!, but when we were purchased, Yum! was very intentional about saying, “You guys keep your name, space and people. We don’t want to mess with the culture that you already have.” We still operate out of dedicated agency offices in Santa Ana, California.
When we joined Yum!, we got access to infrastructure to manage HR, legal and other important functions, so we can keep our focus and energy on our love of creative strategy. And one of the key things we have learned from Yum! is the value of intentionally investing in your people.
What kind of people work for Collider?
Once people join us, they say it is like getting a Ph.D. in real-world marketing. It was – and is – a great place to learn and challenge and grow yourself.
Working for Collider is perfect for a lot of people who don’t necessarily fit into a traditional path. I was a musician, for example. We have Ph.D.s, data scientists and experts in psychology, technology and anthropology. It’s that diversity of minds, energy and talent that is the magic. It allows us to harness the talent of these diverse thinkers in a powerful way.
Is it safe to assume that Collider knows just about everything there is to know about the QSR category at this point?
Working with the brands in so many different countries allows us to learn what is unique in each market and see how different cultures impact the business. But getting to work on the same category, and do it really deeply, is something that is unique in the agency world. We have such deep knowledge of the category that when someone comes to us with a challenge, we’re not starting at the start line. We are ahead of the game.
How does Collider work with our technology groups, such as Kvantum, Yum’s AI-based consumer insights and marketing analytics business?
We have worked with Kvantum and built a tool with them, born from a marketing mix modeling tool. One of the branches of Collider is our data science and data strategy group, and they have worked with Kvantum to automate the backend of the process and take away some of the manual tasks associated with analysis. A process that once could have taken 400 hours on the backend has now gotten down to a 40-hour process. We are always looking to streamline tools, make them more powerful, scalable and affordable.
Talk about how technology and AI play a role at Collider.
We have been using AI at Collider since 2013. We even called it “artificial creativity” at the time. One of the practical uses for AI is to use it to experiment, experiment, experiment. I look at it as going through a series of doors. We open up one door and see that we can use AI to inspire ideas for innovation, and that opens up three other doors and we find three different uses for AI behind those three doors. The possibilities are endless.
“Once people join Collider, they say it is like getting a Ph.D. in real-world marketing. It was – and is – a great place to learn and challenge and grow yourself.”
Talk about working with Pizza Hut on Melts.
We ran a category use occasion study with Pizza Hut and leveraged one of our tools to identify where there was opportunity to gain incremental growth for the business. For something like this, we’ll do thousands of consumer surveys to dig into what kind of occasions are “Pizza Hut occasions” and where there are opportunities. Lunch and solo occasions were identified as big opportunities for the brand, and that informed the decision to innovate around Melts.
And most recently, talk about working with Taco Bell on Cantina Chicken.
We were involved in the Cantina Chicken project in several ways. We started working with Taco Bell on this project two or three years ago. Part of the project was about elevating the menu through chicken as we did a category use study and identified that chicken was a big opportunity.
The project was a ton of fun and a lot of work, and involved all of our agency – Data Science, Data Strategy and our Strategy teams. It is very rewarding to see how successful the launch has been and know that Collider played a role in it.
It is a requirement to ask every marketing executive for thoughts on the series, Mad Men.
Oh my gosh. I am not going to have anything really insightful to say because when Mad Men came out, I was so busy working in advertising, I didn’t even have time to watch a show about advertising!
