All my experience so far in Advertising and Marketing has been on the mainline front (TVCs, Print media, etc.) however during my summer internship as a part of my MBA program I got to experience Digital Marketing.
It created this urge to check out how brands have been leveraging their online presence, and KFC does this really well.
Advertising Background:
Their entire focus revolves around User Generated Content; how can we engage our customers with the brand.
They also look out for feedback, to make their customers feel special.
Now, these two things can be achieved through multiple ways but they ensure to keep their communication interactive which always acts as a bonus.
We are looking at KFC’s presence in India back in 2012, in the junk food space, we already had McDonald’s running the show and doing a good job at it.
KFC had to ensure to move the consumers to develop a stronger connection.
Advertising Objective:
One of the most important reasons for visiting a food outlet like a McDonald’s or KFC was the food of course, but an additional important variable was also the music being played in the background.
And back then, or rather even now, teenagers could spend hours at a food outlet like that even after they are done eating.
KFC decided to leverage on this and introduced the campaign ‘KFC RJ Hunt’, the objective was to find talented RJs whose voice would be heard across KFC outlets on their personal radio.
Advertising Execution:
Aspiring RJs could audition on a newly designed Facebook Application and get a chance to be the KFC RJ.
The entire design of the app was very well thought of with this retro theme where you could record your demo and introduction.
Additional sound effects including laughter, applause, etc. to get the whole radio feel were available. Once you are satisfied with the outcome, you can submit it online.
There were incentives offered like KFC Coupons, Sennheiser headsets, and one winner would get the chance to become the KFC RJ.
Advertising Learnings:
KFC received 3000 auditions and what you hear at the outlets now is actually the voice of the RJ who won this.
I think this entire concept and execution was way ahead of its time.
For a food outlet, promoting their food items is most of the time the focus area, but KFC chose to look beyond.
Imagine something like this being offered in the TikTok crazy era, the response would be even better.
The success was largely dependent on the execution, the ease of auditioning, and looking at various parameters that might make the audition process better.
This a brand that tried to take User Generated Content to another level, and managed to do so brilliantly.