2020/2021 Winners & Shortlists

Background

KFC introduced ‘Fresh’ Chicken into all KSA restaurants as of December 2019. KFC now offers consumers real, ‘Finger Lickin’ Good’, Fresh Chicken, sourced from Local Alyoum Saudi farms. Communicating Fresh / Local chicken was a game changer that would help the brand build Food & Brand Trust, leading to higher brand affinity in market where local brands were dominating with a messaging tapping into the local relevance and pride. How could KFC break through the clutter of local brands and appear as a true pioneer with the fresh chicken news?

The Interpretation of the Challenge (30% of vote)

KFC has been in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for decades, winning its way to the consumers’ stomachs through convenience and promotions. However, the brand has never found its way through their hearts. The proud Saudis have always seen KFC as an average western brand, almost “too American” for their liking. They prefer the taste of local brands such as Al Baik, who until this day continue to rapidly expand on the back of local Saudi pride. In an effort to unlock the gates of the Kingdom and elevate the taste perception and overall brand relevance, in December 2019, KFC became the only fast food brand serving Fresh Saudi chicken in their restaurants across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, trumping their competitors and their frozen chicken. The challenge: We needed to Leverage this “Fresh news” in order to make wave among Saudis.

The Insight / Breakthrough Thinking (30% of vote)

During the exploration phase, we discovered through quantitative research and focus groups in Riyadh and Jeddah that the local Saudi population had been misinformed for decades about the chicken served by their beloved local brands. While they were sure they were being served fresh and local chicken by brands such as Al Baik, the reality was that most of our competitors’ chicken was coming from Brazil, posing the question around the ‘Halal’ labelling. We also knew that KSA was embracing the positive change and national pride was growing, especially amongst the youth, believing that there has never been a better time to be Saudi. We needed to leverage “local” to claim our rightful place in Saudi’s bellies and hearts by tapping into the pride of a nation, and we needed to not only say that our chicken was “Fresh” but that it was “Saudi raised”!

The Creative Idea (20% of vote)

To celebrate our “fresh news” announcement, we decided to go out and prove that we were more Saudi than any other ‘local’ brand. TURNING OUR ICONIC RED INTO A PROUD GREEN. In order to introduce the news of fresh local chicken to Saudi consumers in a way that was disruptive we did the unimaginable: We turned the iconic KFC red into the proud Saudi green, from our buckets, to our uniforms and the entire country through unmistakably KFC out-of-home executions. OUR CHICKEN TASTES, LOOKS, SMELLS AND SOUNDS LOCAL We debunked the belief that Local brands are better just because they tug on heartstrings of Saudi people by highlighting the fact that these same local brands had misled them about the freshness and origin of their chicken. Thanks to KFC they could no longer be misled, as they would now know what Local chicken should taste, look, smell and sound like.

The Outcome / Results (20% of vote)

We went all out with our campaign and made big waves in the kingdom. We not only received love offline with coverage across top publications with a circulation of over 2 million subscriptions, but also online through our social media channels and influencers partnerships. Their content reached 9 million people , and had a whopping 450K engagements. The Saudi local chicken campaign became the key to the gates of the kingdom, with an overall 39% increase in sales compared to previous month across our Saudi stores. And finally our campaign completely reversed the local zeitgeist on which brand owned Saudi pride, triggering our consumers to question other brands’ halal claims on social media: “How is it Halal when it’s sourced from Brazil?” / “It’s a shame that Al Baik is still using imported chicken”. With our Local Chicken campaign KFC took its rightful place into the hearts of Saudis.