2016 Winners & Shortlists

Brief Explanation

KFC was opening its 700th store in the Middle East. What was meant to be a reason to celebrate turned into a concern when negative rumours about food quality surfaced and slowly took over social media. This chatter caused a dip in sales for existing stores. The campaign was created to quell these rumours, get people’s attention and win back trust ensuring a positive celebration for the milestone store. We needed to make sure that the negative conversation on social media turned into a positive one, to reverse the impact on sales.

Results and Effectiveness

Our strategy to bring the Colonel back successfully diluted negative conversations about the food quality. We created an experience that Kuwaitis enjoyed like never before. - #unleashthecolonel became the top trending conversation on Twitter generating 3 million impressions and 1 million social engagements - The trend covering the Colonel’s mall event was a huge success with an average engagement rate of 34%, 6.8 times higher than the benchmark (5%) - Most importantly, the Colonel managed to increase KFC brand sentiment by 11% on social media conversations

Creative Execution

Colonel Sanders' visit to Kuwait was an event that created a lot of hype, which we further fueled by treating him like a celebrity with body guards, marching bands and appearances in different venues. Our social team followed his every move and regularly released content on Kuwait’s social feeds with #unleashthecolonel. We provided constant updates in real time and shared details about where fans could meet him. This involved and engaged our customers in the campaign, which grew with their participation - social media uploads, re-posts, likes, shares and re-tweets. Their engagement was far beyond what was expected.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

KFC first made its foray in Kuwait in the early 70s and has since grown into a market leader. For our audience, Colonel Sanders and the iconic bucket are associated with the golden decade of Kuwait’s socioeconomic boom and have a high positive recall value. To address the issue we had to give our audience an experience they’ve never had before. We decided to create an event that people would want be a part of. Ensuring coverage in traditional media, a stronger push was given to social channels where regular content was published to maximise exposure.