KFC-flavoured Walkers MAX was the kind of product that people would naturally get excited about – but the brief required us to create a campaign worthy of such an iconic collaboration. We had to communicate the product in a disruptive, talkable way, balancing the creative and business interests of both brands in the process. As well as landing the two new flavours, we had to ensure the 2 for 1 KFC meal offer came through as well.

In the UK, Leicester is the home of Walkers and where Gary Lineker was born who has advertised Walkers crisps for decades. He is very much the ambassador of the brand.

We this partnership we wanted to highlight those strange things in life that, despite being obvious, and right under our noses, take us ages to spot. Gary Lineker looking similar to Colonel Sanders is one. And KFC-flavoured crisps is another.

The product itself felt like a bit of a cultural moment – and we wanted to mirror this with our campaign. Our strategy called for an idea that focused on the iconic-ness of this collaboration. If we could use recognisable brand assets, all the better.

While the target audience was pretty much the whole population, we wanted to add a Gen-Z skew to reflect KFC’s key demographic, and take Walkers MAX to a more sophisticated, ‘cooler’ place.

Our hero film showed Gary Lineker, the ambassador of Walkers, on a journey which ends with him realising that he looks an awful lot like the face of KFC, Colonel Sanders. He just so happens to be eating KFC-flavoured Walkers at the time.

Gary’s journey around the dark city streets takes him past a number of other KFC-meets-Walkers coincidences – a billboard being changed from one brand to the other, a pair of twins eating Walkers and KFC at the same time. The grand finale sees Gary Lineker stopping in front of a white suit in a shop window. We finally realise something that’s been under our nose for years – Gary Lineker looks just like Colonel Sanders. It makes perfect sense – just like KFC-flavoured crisps.

We also ran a special build OOH billboard to tease the product launch.

14 million completed views

£13.1m of sales in first 7 months

540K on-pack KFC redemptions

Sold out product nationwide