Cannes Lions
McCANN, Bucharest / KFC / 2023
Overview
Entries
Credits
Background
KFC is big on discount season. The problem is every single one of our competitors is doing exactly the same. Young people are used to ignoring these offers. The challenge was to get young people interested in our discounts, increase sales, and strengthen our brand’s positioning while engaging them in a fun and disruptive way.
For KFC to solidify love brand status, the campaign needed to tackle new entertainment platforms and provide a fulfilling experience for everyone, avoiding classical ad placements.
All this while making something as simple as giving away discounts the talk of the town, creating desirability towards KFC.
Idea
KFC decided to hijack Fortnite and make gamers chase its discounts.
Fortnite is the most popular game throughout the younger gaming community in Romania. We chose the best and most famous Romanian Fortnite streamers and had them change their avatar names into KFC discount percentages - the better they ranked, the harder they were to kill, and the better the discount, from 60% to 100%.
All gamers had to do was to join our online matches and shoot one of our influencer avatars to instantly win the KFC discount, which they received in a private chat on Discord. We changed the way they played Fortnite. Instead of hunting each other, they all actively started to hunt our discounts. The experience was awesome for everyone involved: gamers got to chase down their favorite influencers and win KFC and influencers got the “level 1000” version of the game - being hunted by everyone.
Strategy
For discount seasons such as this, KFC targets the younger demographic, from 16 to 25 years old, particularly due to its products low price point. The promo is aimed at making the gaming experience better for everybody, not ruining or interrupting it.One in two Romanian youngsters are gamers. Using this strategy, we attracted both gamers and watchers by entering their universe in amfun and disruptive way. We brought KFC discounts inside a game so that we can directly give them to our intended audience.
Outcome
The Killer Discounts activation had two similar editions. During the first edition sing-ups for the competition event were 57 times more than the available seats, surpassing 11,000 participants. The stream sessions was followed by over 135,000 viewers, all videos had 800,000 total views and generated more than 2,000 live chat comments. The first edition video broke into YouTube’s top-trending gaming Romanian videos at #7 where we were the only branded content. This led up to great business results, proving that a successful gaming activation can bring brand fame and consistent sales. After the first edition KFC became the most-loved brand in the category, with an affinity score increase of8pp versus our direct competitor. The meaningfulness score grew by 35 points, with a 40-point difference versus our competitor. KFC grew in consumption frequency by 14pp versus the previous period and by 4pp versus the competition. All the while we spent only
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