Episode 110 - KFC Dégustation Ad Reviewed by Humana and The Gym Group
In this week’s episode, we review KFC Australia’s attempt to rival Michelin-starred restaurants with the KFC Dégustation campaign.
This brilliant ad certainly turned heads and got the brand talked about by food critics, celebrities and beyond. And it had a worldwide impact. But what were its objectives and did it hit them?
Watch the video to hear from our guests Akash Pathak (Associate Vice President, Marketing, at Humana) and Sean Martin (Digital Marketing Manager at The Gym Group) and see why they scored this ad a 4 out of 5.
Episode 110 - KFC Dégustation Ad Reviewed by Humana and The Gym Group
Transcript - It’s not perfect, but you get the idea!
Amy Wright 0:00
Hello and welcome to this week's Advertisers Watching Ads. My name is Amy Wright, and I'm the Client Strategy Director at Automated Creative, this week, hosting for Tom Ollerton, who is on his summer holidays.
We are coming to you this week with our partners, Contagious, once again to talk about a new case study for KFC. But before we kick into the details, I want to get you to meet our guests this week.
Akash Pathak 0:29
Hi, my name is Akash. I currently work at Humana. I've been in marketing for 20 years, and I've worked at Accenture and McDonald's. So, excited to be here.
Sean Martin 0:39
Hi, I'm Sean. So I'm Digital Marketing Manager here at The Gym Group. I guess my main role is looking after a lot of the paid media that we do, so showcasing the ad, showcasing what The Gym Group has to offer.
Amy Wright 0:49
Great! So that leads us to this week's case study. From quick service retailer to ultimate in fine dining experience, this case study kind of showcases the range of what it means to be a quality brand, how you move taste perceptions, and I think sparked a really interesting debate about the difference between paid media and earned media, and where we play today with that type of activity. So without further ado, let's see the case study.
So as is tradition, we ask you both for a mark out of five. So on the count of three, one, two, three... I'm giving a full five. It's very rare I give five. So five for me, two fours from the guys. Guys, what was your initial impressions of the case study?
Akash Pathak 3:30
So generally speaking, I was like, "Wow, what a cool idea." Certainly got a ton of attention for it as well, and the food looked good. You know what I was thinking about, from an objective perspective, I wonder if their intent was new audience. One of the things I know a little bit about KFC is that, you know, generally speaking, if you think of, you know, fine dining, and you think of like, who you're trying to reach, you know, KFC probably has a core audience that, that probably doesn't go to fine dining. So I think that almost in a way, it could be a brilliant idea, because they're trying to create these new occasions, but new diners, and that's a huge growth strategy, right? So from that perspective, I really loved it, the fact that they reached so many people and grabbed a lot of attention, I would hope to think that some of those people actually trickled in and visited KFC after, after they, you know, saw the stuff.
Sean Martin 3:30
Yeah, I really loved it as well. I thought when you see them, the perception of them is fast food and just like greasy food. And so just changing the perception of that, that they can be fine dining was really interesting. I thought also, what was fascinating just how much it got picked up, you know. It was originally in Australia, and it's getting picked up by I think it was Jimmy Fallon in the US. I thought it was so fascinating that they've done such a good job of spreading their earned media with the idea that it looked like a great ad. As Akash said, like the core audience is quite interesting though, because that definitely wouldn't be KFC's core audiences. It’s really fine dining and like, I was reading the intricacies of it. It was like they were given out like 200 Australian dollar like bottles of champagne and stuff and it's just like, "Oh, wow, that's like next level." So it is quite fascinating to figure out like, were they trying to grow their audience? Was that their aim? Or was it purely this quality perception? But from start to finish, I thought it was really, really fascinating. And I think it was just on trend and really shareable. And so they've done such a good job of that.
Amy Wright 5:16
The media pickup this got was something else. Do you think that was the inevitable outcome? Was that very much designed by the campaign? What are your thoughts there?
Akash Pathak 5:24
Influencers have started to really kind of help brands drive reach, drive credibility, be a part of culture. Marketing has always said, we want to be at the speed of culture, right? That's, that's our job. We have to understand culture, and we have to be a part of it. Because that helps us persuade and break through the noise. Brands and influencers are sort of intertwined. Things are getting a little more complicated. Things are getting a little bit more combined. I think with this case, you know, you have less of that. Jimmy Fallon was probably an aftereffect or he could have been part of the partnership. We don't, we don't know the answer to that. But I think that that's an interesting piece. And I think that's where brands should aspire is if you can get a part of culture, get an influencer involved or two, you're going to really kind of propel your brand forward, and probably see some results that you just can't do with paid media.
Sean Martin 6:13
I agree influencers have such a huge part. They're almost like the new celebrities, because I think celebrity endorsement is not as like, respected anymore, because I feel like people know celebrities just getting paid a lot for it. And I think for this sort of campaign that KFC were running, I think they were going for like this earned media approach. And I think for the idea that they had, that worked perfectly. I would question whether this campaign from KFC delivered much commercial value, like apart, apart from just increasing their quality perception. So if they were going purely for sort of sales and increasing their growth, like would that this campaign have delivered that for them? Or is it just them increasing their quality perception, so maybe they can increase their prices? So it's quite an interesting one whereas I think paid media delivers more from a commercial perspective than potentially, like this earned media approach.
Amy Wright 7:01
How do you as marketers kind of generate this kind of ideas? It's a big ask, I think for any internal team and, or client to kind of firstly, back this. Secondly, handover creative control to someone completely different. Thirdly, mess around with the core components of a brand, like it's some big asks here. So how do marketers now do these types of campaigns? How would you approach this internally?
Akash Pathak 7:22
I think internally speaking, as a marketer, I think you want to say, you know, are there some good times to swing? You know, for the fences. The other coaching, I would say is that, you know, how are you going to persevere? Because there's going to be many, many times when people doubt it, can you kind of build that perseverance and get through that to sort of see some of these big ideas come to life. And the last piece of advice, I think I gave this to some college students a long time ago was like, sometimes it just doesn't work out, and that's okay. You gotta get up and try again.
Sean Martin 7:50
It's really having, backing that idea a 100%, not just like, "Okay, well, we're gonna do this idea, but not really back it or push it anywhere." And I think that's what KFC have done really well, as well that they really backed the idea and spread that the news wide and far.
Amy Wright 8:04
We really exist in a world now where you can put a potentially very functional brief about increasing quality perceptions in, in a local market, and that has a global impact and a global reach on the effects for the brand. How the hell do you navigate that? And how are you working with agencies to deliver that? And how are you... thinking about ideas that have both that very local purpose, but also that much, much bigger scope and scale to them?
Sean Martin 8:24
Everything is changing so quickly. So really making sure that you're, like, when you're working with those agencies, they are really up to date. And like you want to be working with the best agencies who are always on trend, because realistically, brands can't keep up to date with these things, and they need external help, like you can't have, for me, I've got to look after so many things, I can't keep up to date with what's happening on TikTok right now. And that's why you need those sort of specialists, agencies, that can really help you. But I think also just being really like clear on your, your briefs and your objectives like, not overbriefing with so many different objectives that it's really hard to understand. You give them a really clear brief with a clear objective, then they can go out there and be creative with that one objective.
Akash Pathak 9:02
I think there's some sensitivity to things that go global, but as long as it's within the realm of, you know, what the brand stands for, you know, where the brand wants to go, I think there's going to be some localization, as you call it. You know, the world is much flatter now than it ever was. We have a lot of different things to care for. But I think that's kind of the fun aspect of it. I think if you can get involved in some campaigns where you can work with your global partners, that can be really fun, because you're kind of learning about cultures in different areas, you're activating different ways. You're seeing how the brand comes to life in a different country. You know, that's, that's the fun of it.
Amy Wright 9:40
So thank you, everybody, this week for watching Advertisers Watching Ads. I've been your host, and our fantastic guests, Sean, and Akash. And we have loved talking about the KFC case study. See you next week. Bye.
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