2016 Winners & Shortlists

The Brief

KFC’s was opening its 700th store in the Middle East. What was meant to be a reason to celebrate turned into 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 the turn the negative conversation on social media into a positive one, to reverse the effect on sales.

Creative Execution

The negative rumours were beginning to affect the brand image. KFC decided to act fast and fly down a Colonel Sanders look-alike to stem the spread of negativity. The Colonel’s face on the KFC bucket is positively present in the memories of three different Kuwaiti generations. This was a proven fact as every time we mentioned Colonel Sanders in a social post, the engagement rate was 20% more than the average. We created awareness about the Colonel’s visit with an interesting hashtag - #unleashthecolonel got people talking and had them engaged. With a constant live update of events as they happened, our audience was encouraged to visit locations that included KFC stores to meet and greet the Colonel. We were confident his presence at popular locations would get the people talking and help in winning back the trust and confidence of the people.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

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

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

KFC needed a promotion that would win the confidence of the people and bring them flocking back to the stores. With Kuwait not really being witness to any celebrity sightings, we decided to fly down our very own Colonel Sanders! His familiar face was promoted across various communication channels letting people know that he would be in town. He toured KFC stores and was seen preparing and serving his world famous secret recipe dispelling any doubts about quality and taste. To enforce brand’s perception for care and health, he visited hospitals and local schools. His tour ended with a grand finale at the largest shopping mall in Kuwait where he made his grand entrance with a marching band and was greeted by thousands of fans. This ensured maximum visibility and all the right noise that was needed for the activation.