Localizing KFC

           This essay is an analysis of a public sign/logo of a private business establishment. The essay has three objectives: 1) describe briefly the profile of the business establishment; 2) describe its sign/logo; and 3) show how the sign reflects local realities. Ultimately, I argue that even as the local business establishment uses the ‘global’ to its advantage, it still is able to assert its local identity by using the language of the local community in its sign.

The data are composed of the sign itself and interviews with the two service crew members of the establishment (on behalf of the unavailable owner) and with seven random customers (male and female, ranging from 18 to 45 years old).

Business first . . .

            The Kanto Fried Chicken is estimated to belong under Small & Medium Enterprise (SME). It sells fried chicken in different cuts (whole, drumstick, thigh, chicken skin) for a range of prices. Within just a year, it already has 15 branches scattered in 13 barangays and 2 villages. The specific branch discussed here is on Chorillo St., Barangay Barangka, Marikina City near my boarding house.  

I saw the sign. . .  

            The sign may be described in terms of its semiotic resources, its purposes, and its target audience. The following description will be used in the analysis later on.

The semiotic resources utilized by the sign are languages and pictures. The English language and the Filipino language are both used in the sign. The words “The Original” and “Fried Chicken” are in English while Kanto (which means street corner) is originally a Spanish word (Spanish being the language of the Philippines’ colonizers) but was eventually accepted as an everyday Filipino word. On the left side of the sign is a face surrounded by the words “Arnoco’s Pritos”; the first word is the family name of the owner while the second is the Filipino word for fried. The crew identifies the face as a caricature of Mr. Arnoco.

            The sign has two purposes. The first is to bear the identity of the establishment. Any business establishment is incomplete unless it has a name. Usually, its name is bannered on a public sign, a logo. This sign becomes the identity of the establishment before the public eye as it will be the first thing to be noticed by the public and the name that people associate the business with as a whole. It may be a reflection of the business’s values and products/services. The second purpose is to call attention. The mere presence of a sign already means that something should be noticed. Thus, it becomes an important stimulus for the people to notice the establishment and what it offers.

            The target audience is the customers, especially the potential customers. Specifically, it both targets the people who belong to low-income bracket (the immediate local community) and middle class as revealed in the range of their prices (P 10 – P 150) and the communities they are operating in. The crew also confirm that their customers range from bystanders to professionals who drive cars.  

The ‘local’ realities

            The terms ‘local’ and ‘global’ will not be used entirely in Canagarajah’s sensibility (2005) since these pre-existing constructs do not account for the ‘local’ and ‘global’ in economic business terms. For my purposes, the ‘local’ will be operationally defined as business establishments operating only in the local community while the ‘global’ refers to foreign business establishments which operate in different countries and have attained international prestige such as Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) and McDonald’s; however, I am aware that specific nuances need to be done with these operational definitions which space does not allow. Here, I argue that the global business establishment’s identity is used by a local business establishment to its advantage yet the local still asserts its identity through local language use. The notion of visual grammar in the spatial organization of texts will be used in the analysis (Kress & van Leeuwen as cited in Taylor-Leech, 2011).  

             The local uses the global’s identity to its own advantage. In this context, this means that the given local establishment purposefully uses the prestige of KFC (the international one) to gain attention. The sign itself commands the reading public to associate it with KFC. The three capital letters K F C are placed in the center of the sign, in bold and the biggest characters in the sign. Given their placement, order, and size in the sign, these three letters may be the ‘new or more important information’ (Kress and van Leeuwen as cited in Taylor-Leech, 2011: 16). Also, on the left side of the sign is a male figure which was identified by the crew as their “kuya”, the owner Mr. Arnoco. This figure in the sign is an imitation of the KFC logo in two levels: a) putting Mr. Arnoco’s figure is similar with putting KFC founder Colonel Harland Sanders’ figure on KFC logo and; b) the placement of both figures are on the left side. Overall, what these suggest is that the given sign is constructed purposefully so people readily associate it with the prestigious KFC and get enticed to buy its products.

            This notion is called “Perceived Brand Foreignness”, a marketing communication strategy “which involves a set of functional and imagery associations with non-local appeals [foreign culture appeals] of the product” employed by the local brands (Keller, Maheswaran, Papadopoulos as cited in Zhou et al., 2009: 3). It is believed that it adds “to brand value as perceived by consumers” (Shocker at al.; Pappu et al. in Zhou et al., 2009: 3) and is more pervasive in developing countries (Batra et al. in Zhou, 2009). Again in this context through the local business establishment’s name written on the public sign, it aims to increase the brand value of their local fried chicken by making people associate their product with the global prestige of KFC.  

Although the argument above is not be supported by the owner’s views due to his absence at the time of my visit, the customers got the same impression as I did. Furthermore, they also find it effective. One said that “Noong una kung nakita ‘yun, KFC na agad ang naisip ko.(The first time I saw it, I immediately thought of KFC).” The same respondent said that “Madali siyang mapansin dahil sa three letters na KFC (It is easily noticeable because of the three letters, KFC.)”. Another respondent said that the sign is “cute dahil ginagaya nila ang KFC na ‘branded’, kilala. Eh, ito pang-street lang, gilid-gilid lang” (I find the sign cute because they imitate KFC which is ‘branded’ and known considering that this business establishment is basically 'for the streets').   

            Even as the local business establishment uses KFC’s prestigious global identity, it still is able to assert its own local identity: by using the word “kanto”. As explained earlier, public signs/logos are business establishments’ identities. In this case while the establishment tries to associate itself with the elite KFC, it also projects a local image by using the local language. Why is “kanto” a reflection of the local? Apart from the fact that it is ingrained in the Filipinos’ daily vocabulary, the word has also been used to index something as local. Examples are the phrases, “salitang kanto” (street language), “kwentong kanto” (street stories), and “kainan sa kanto” (small-scale restaurant at the street corner). Using “kanto” in the sign suggests that the language and language practices of the local community index the business establishment as ‘local’, that is, the sign tells the local people that it is for the masses even as it says that it offers world-class fried chicken.   

                             

References

Canagarajah, S. (2005). Reconstructing local knowledge, reconfiguring language studies. In S. Canagarajah (Ed.), Reclaiming the local in language policy and practice (pp. 3-24). Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

Taylor-Leech, K.J. (2012). Language choice as an index of identity: linguistic landscape in Dili, Timor-Leste. International Journal of Multilingualism 9 (1): 15 – 34.

Zhou, Lianxi. (2009). Non-local or local brands? A multi-level investigation into confidence in brand origin identification and its strategic implications. Journal of Academic Marketing Science 38: 202-218.