RZUSA - Standard - Krispy Kreme $50
Are You a Krispy Kreme Lover?
The air outside smells sickly sweet
and I am dragged through the doors by my nostrils. The Enfield branch of Krispy
Kreme doughnuts is cavernous, decorated in subway tiles and retro ice-cream
colours, an attempt at recreating a bite of Americana, instead of a large shack
in a retail park just off the A10. The music piped through the building is
Elvis Presley, a man who knew a thing or two about doughnuts.
This week, the North Carolina-based
chain announced it would be doubling the number of its outlets in the UK to 100
over the next five years, on the back of growing sales, with revenue up 12.6%
and serving 5 million customers. The next will open in Leeds next month.
What is more astonishing is the way
each new store is received. When Krispy Kreme opened its most recent outlet in
Cardiff in April, its 46th in the UK, more than 1,000 people queued for two
hours for a doughnut. One couple even camped overnight at the front of the
queue. "I do have a life, honestly," the 32-year-old Londoner told a
Welsh newspaper, before going on to explain that it's his hobby to go to the
openings of every new Krispy Kreme store. He will be busy over the next few
years.
Here in the UK, they are stocked in
Harrods and Selfridges, a marketing masterstroke, because there is also a less
glamorous retail side. You find kiosks in motorway service stations, and in
Enfield – the UK's first stand-alone store after it had opened a concession in
Harrods to much hype – Krispy Kreme shares its car park with a McDonald's,
where people sit in their fetid cars, masticating. This store even has a
drive-through, for when you really can't be bothered to walk the few metres to
the counter.
The brand is infused with a
glamorous American mythology, helped in part by cameo appearances in television
shows such as Sex and the City and The Sopranos, with well-publicised fans such
as Madonna and Beyoncé. It is an example of great branding, says Don Williams,
chief executive of brand consultancy PI Global. "It has a strong
personality, its heritage is almost tangible, and yet it doesn't feel like it's
had marketeers all over it. It looks like it's always been that way – a little
bit of old Americana, in the same way that Coca-Cola has its roots in that
world. Notice the logo similarities."
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