PepsiCo
Background
Yum! Brands began as Tricon Global Restaurants, spun off from PepsiCo in 1997 when PepsiCo divested its KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut restaurant divisions to focus on its beverage and snack businesses. PepsiCo had originally built this restaurant portfolio through acquisitions, including buying Pizza Hut for about $300 million in 1977 to diversify beyond beverages into the high-cash-flow restaurant industry. The spun-off company was renamed Yum! Brands in 2002 as it expanded its global restaurant portfolio beyond the original three PepsiCo-era brands. The Tricon name itself reflected the three original brands -- Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut -- and the company's 2002 rename to Yum! Brands came after founding CEO David Novak popularized 'Yum!' as an internal recognition-culture term, eventually adopting it as the corporate identity itself, an unusually informal name choice for a Fortune 500 company at the time. David Novak later wrote extensively about the recognition culture and leadership philosophy he built at Yum, becoming an influential figure in corporate management literature beyond the restaurant industry itself. Novaks emphasis on employee recognition programs, including handing out rubber chickens and other unconventional awards to top performers, became a widely discussed case study in corporate culture-building well beyond the restaurant industry. Yum recognition-culture programs, including its famous rubber-chicken awards, remain part of new-employee orientation materials across its restaurant brands today. The Yum name itself has become so closely associated with the company that few customers today realize it originated as an internal management-culture term rather than a marketing invention.