…Well not so innocent to the difficulties and challenges of starting up a new business that is. Richard Reed, the co-founder of Innocent Drinks, is fronting a new series for BBC3, Be Your Own Boss and he has up to £1million of his own money to invest. He is looking to nurture and invest in the next wave of young entrepreneurs.
Richard Reed is well placed to front this new BBC3 programme given the history of his and his co-founders belief and commitment to their idea which is the commercially successful food retailer Innocent Drinks.
A couple of years ago I interviewed Richard about the trials and tribulations of being a young entrepreneur (audio interview).
This is probably a Michael Cain moment, in that “not a lot of people know that”.
I just thought I would take a minute to champion a local Reading business which stretches nationally and internationally.
I am talking about the brand Southern Fried Chicken.
Now we all like a bit of ‘dirty chicken’ now and again as my daughter calls it, but where does everyone head for such a wicked treat? To the Colonels of course, otherwise known as KFC.
With the UK economy as it stands at the moment I believe we need to support our UK based companies as much as possible.
Not so long ago I met Andrew Withers, CEO of Southern Fried Chicken who had a recent appearance on C4′s Undercover Boss. He is an absolutely charming man, who is exceedingly passionate about the quality of his product and the satisfaction of his customers.
You can read about the history of Southern Fried Chicken and local Reading boy Andrew who is now at the helm after taking over from his father, at www.southernfriedchicken.com
Andrew Withers, boss of Southern Fried Chicken, goes undercover in his fast food franchise, and is shocked by what he discovers about the standards, staff, food and customers.
Southern Fried Chicken was started by Andrew’s father back in the 1960s and now has outlets across the UK. Andrew feels passionately that the SFC brand in the UK is in need of an overhaul, and feels himself at odds with the carefully constructed image he has spent years developing for the brand in 70 countries overseas. In the UK, SFC is associated with post-pub late night binge eats rather than seen as a family restaurant.
Andrew spends time behind the counter to find out why the company’s 200 UK franchises aren’t living up to his expectations. Can he get his business back on track?
So before you drive to a KFC to line the pocket of the US economy, check out to see if there’s a Southern Fried Chicken near you…you know it makes sense.
Oh and one last thing, enjoy watching a Southern Fried Chicken team build a huge SFC bucket in snowy Russia amongst all the snowmen.
(Southern Fried Chicken’s headquarters are based in Woodley and the Reading branch is 164, Whitley Wood Road.)
Richard Reed is the co-founder of Innocent Drinks. An incredible success story that has seen the brand rise from selling forty smoothies in one week in 1999 to over two million smoothies per week today.
I caught up with Richard who told me all about the rollercoaster of peaks and troughs of starting up a business.
Guerilla marketing is not just for the corporates however, I feel that small businesses are perhaps not grasping the stratgey and techniques that the companies with the big spend have. You don’t have to have huge budgets to be creative and hone down what they are doing. It can be done.
It’s a look and learn lesson.
What are they doing that is so successful and engaging? What are your objectives? Could we you something like that? The answer to the latter is yes.
The most prevalent guerilla maketing campaign recently has been Heineken and their campaign for the Real Madrid v AC Milan game.
It’s just a case of thinking out of the box.
Small businesses can do it, think guerilla, experiential, get enagaged, get people thinking. It doesn’t have to be on a grand scale.
Anything that will gain human reaction. As a race we are naturally intrigued.
Get creative, use your people for ideas and as Nike would say…Just Do It!
Are you a small business? I Would love to hear about your campaigns.
