#MarketingExcellenceAwards SG 2021 highlight: KFC catches attention with finger lickin' fresh strategy

KFC’s reputation as the world’s most famous fried chicken fast food chain did not come by accident. Staying true to its founder’s spirit, strict quality control measures have always been in place to maintain the standards of KFC products. However, for KFC Singapore, this solid reputation was compromised in 2020 due to operations and labour challenges, which led to many complaints and queries around the quality of KFC’s core products.

Customer satisfaction studies revealed that one in five complaints were around poor food quality, with terms such as “disappointed” emerging prominently in sentiment analysis. Feedback on social channels showed that consumers were questioning the crispiness or consistency of KFC’s chicken. This inevitably translated to business implications.

Working with The Secret Little Agency, KFC confronted its quality issues head-on. The campaign was a success and reinforced its position as Singapore’s favourite fried chicken brand. This impressed the judges and KFC won the silver award for Excellence in Brand Strategy at MARKETING INTERACTIVE’s Marketing Excellence Awards Singapore 2021.

Challenge

Singapore’s fast-food landscape has become saturated various market offerings. While KFC held the highest market share across all fried chicken quick-service restaurants (QSR), new entrants were introducing variations of the dish and dominant QSR players started to include fried chicken options in their product offerings.

KFC faced competition from every direction and unpredictable pandemic regulations added to KFC’s existing operations and labour crunch. The team realised that consumers were no longer craving KFC’s Original Recipe and Hot & Crispy Chicken prior to their store visit. KFC was at risk of losing its market standing as the top barrier for consumers choosing KFC was a lack of craving, a key driver for competitors.

Strategy

Through social listening, quantitative studies and feedback analysis, KFC learnt that Singaporeans had deeply imprinted perceptions of QSRs. Singaporeans believed that QSRs were factories where servers dispassionately flash fry frozen foods that looked nothing like their advertisements and that QSR did not care about customer satisfaction. This contrasted with growing sentiments in other food categories, such as hawker culture, where Singaporeans were acknowledging the high quality of food owing to the effort hawkers placed into every ingredient and dish. This formed KFC's insight: Singaporeans saw fast food as an industry devoid of effort.

KFC realised that it had to let Singaporeans know that it was unlike other QSR brands. Aware of the heightened sensitivity audiences had towards false advertising and empty promises from QSRs, KFC knew that passive assurance was not enough to demonstrate its commitment to providing consumers with high quality products. 

A commitment strategy was developed with four key pillars of focus that would make up the Colonel’s Guarantee campaign:

1. Invest in people

To demonstrate KFC’s commitment in delivering the best tasting chicken, KFC put in place a certification programme to retrain all Cooks and the Operations Team. The Quality Assurance team was roped in to ensure standards of its chicken across all restaurants in Singapore were up to mark. To motivate workers, a Cook Challenge was conducted at the end to reinforce and ingrain the procedures.

2. Taste Promise 

To demonstrate its commitment to quality, KFC launched The Colonel’s Guarantee – a one-for-one exchange promise that customers can exchange their fried chicken if they felt it was not finger-licking good. The programme remains active beyond the campaign period as a long-term commitment to quality.

3. Value offer

Understanding that the taste promise alone was not enough to incentivise Singaporeans to visit KFC’s restaurants, KFC introduced value deals to encourage the purchase and trial of KFC’s fried chicken products. KFC also revealed its preparation methods to the public via a series of social media post since open kitchen tours which we conducted were no longer possible due to pandemic restrictions. KFC hoped to educate Singaporeans about the effort that goes into every piece of chicken. 

Execution

To spark conversations and evoke cravings, KFC launched the campaign by bolding announcing the Colonel’s Guarantee to Singapore in a film by making KFC’s iconic founder – Colonel Sanders – the face of the film. Against the backdrop of a KFC kitchen, the Colonel promised that if the customer’s chicken was not tender, juicy or fresh, a replacement would be made. To spark nationwide conversation, the film was placed on high viewership platforms across television, social and digital media. 

KFC also created key visuals that played up the taste cues of their fried chicken – fresh, juicy, tender and Finger-Lickin' Good. For these key visuals, KFC built a brand-new photography library, using photography techniques that amplified freshness, tenderness and juiciness. These mouthwatering visuals went on print, OOH placements in high-traffic areas, such as MRT platforms, on social and digital and were even blown up larger-than-life on KFC’s delivery trucks. These touchpoints were chosen to interrupt Singaporeans on their everyday routines, whether they were on the road or watching a YouTube video and seed undeniable crave for KFC chicken.

On radio, KFC seized Singaporeans’ attention while on their daily commutes to announce the Colonel’s Guarantee to them. KFC ran radio ads and open talk sequences that dived deeper into the processes in a KFC kitchen. One of the most important touchpoints was in front of the KFC kitchens. KFC placed Pledge of Quality posters in-store that served as a promise to consumers and a rallying manifesto for staff. This was complemented by tray liners and staff badges that reminded consumers of KFC’s commitment while immersed in the sights, smells and sounds of KFC.

Value: Triggering at point of purchase

KFC developed a tactical communications plan to let Singaporeans know about the unbeatable deals. These went out on social media and digital banners that led users straight to KFC’s delivery platform on KFC’s website and App. Assets touting the deal were unmissable in-store to trigger consumers purchase. 

People: Showcasing commitment

To showcase what went on behind the scenes of the campaign, KFC adopted a targeted earned media strategy, engaging publications to talk about the Colonel’s Guarantee and in doing so, elaborate on the work KFC was putting into doing things the right way, through its retraining and recertifying programme.

Educate: Sustaining appreciation 

KFC created assets that adopted the new key visuals and brought audiences into the kitchens of KFC, to show the intricate processes that went into each hand-crafted piece of chicken. This reinforced quality and evoked crave among food enthusiasts everywhere. While the campaign went from the end of February through March 2021, the Colonel’s Guarantee did not end there – with the Taste Promise and Educate pillars continuing even after. KFC wanted Singaporeans to know that The Colonel’s Guarantee was not a frivolous promise but a commitment to serve finger-licking good chicken to Singaporeans.

Results

The campaign saw immense success for not just KFC’s core pillar of fried chicken products, but KFC as brand. Compared to the same period a year prior, sales were up by 25%, exceeding the initial target of 15% by a whopping 10 percentage points. Additionally, the servings of core chicken meals per thousand transactions grew by 44%, versus the year before; customers were ordering a lot more core chicken meals over other non-core products. This demonstrates that there was a fundamental increase in the core pillar’s contribution to the overall business.

Tactical sales of the Value Deals during this campaign sold 66% above projections and remained high even after tactical offers have ended. Brand Image Tracking research conducted by IPSOS after the campaign period showed that the Colonel’s Guarantee campaign contributed positively to KFC’s Brand Desire score, with a significant increase from 13.9% to 16%, while the Brand Equity score improved from 15.9% to 17.4%.

KFC also received a spike of 304% of positive feedback regarding the quality of its fried chicken. Ultimately, KFC took an inside-out approach, making improvements to the very core of its business before it embarked on making promises to its audiences at a communications level and as a result, elevated Singapore’s craving for KFC for a long time.