Harland Sanders was the original celebrity chef. In 1952 he franchised his first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and would go on to build a chicken empire. In the decades since, America’s fast-food industry changed dramatically. Consumers adopted healthy eating habits, chicken on the bone (KFC’s core product) got less popular, and tons of competitors entered the market: Popeyes, Zaxby’s, Church’s, and Chick-fil-A. KFC failed to evolve and suffered decades of declining sales - struggling to bring in younger consumers. Our brief was clear: create holiday content that entertains and brings in a younger audience. Our key objectives were to 1) Create news. Get KFC back on the radar with younger audiences, by being talked about in culture. 2) Once engaged, drive consideration to buy among younger audiences. And 3) Drive the business. While not originally a primary objective, we were curious if we could convert awareness and engagement into sales.

Since romance is a core part of Lifetime’s DNA, we knew we wanted a ridiculous story that revolved around a Harland Sanders with sex appeal. To reach younger audiences, we needed to cast a younger celebrity Colonel, and Mario Lopez, who was starring in a Lifetime holiday movie at the time, stepped up to the plate. Clever, playful and nothing but entertaining, the 15 minute “A Recipe For Seduction” aired during Lifetime’s It’s A Wonderful Lifetime movie programming with a plot that played right into the spirit of the holidays: As the holidays draw near, a young heiress contends with the affections of a suitor handpicked by her mother. When the handsome chef, Harland Sanders, arrives with?his fried chicken recipe and a dream, he sets in motion a series of events that unravels the mother’s devious plans.

In normal years, many QSR insights are born from food. In 2020, it was impossible to develop marketing without considering the cultural impact of the pandemic. In their anxiety, many Americans retreated to the nostalgic, feel-good embrace of comfort food (an advantage for KFC, famous for serving one of America’s favorites: fried chicken.) We realized Americans’ need for comfort extended beyond food. Trapped in their homes, many craved entertainment that transported them away from the world’s realities. It wasn’t just comfort food that was getting people through COVID, it was comfort content. This is the cultural vein we believed KFC needed to tap. How could we give America a special moment of escapist pleasure by making a very silly piece of comforting content? Our strategic idea: Let’s create the kind of comforting and entertaining content for 2020 that only KFC and Lifetime can deliver.

“A Recipe for Seduction” debuted 12/13/20 during Lifetime’s popular It’s a Wonderful Lifetime holiday movie lineup. Together we crafted a communications plan to reach younger audiences with robust social and digital, on-air pushes and a PR blitz. One week prior to the premiere, the trailer launched on TV and social and quickly became the talk of the Internet - many questioning its validity. A press release was sent to entertainment, media and food outlets across TV, radio, digital and print. Lifetime, KFC and Mario Lopez activated their social platforms to continue to build hype with a movie-style poster and memes. We also worked with UberEats on a promotional offer adding free chicken tenders to KFC orders starting the day of the premiere. This offer was pushed in social/digital to Lifetime fans and people exposed to ads for A Recipe for Seduction.

Creating successful branded content is difficult. To make a mark in culture you truly have to blow people away. In this case, we set out to reach younger and lapsed customers during the busy holiday season by swinging for the fences and creating our own movie. It turns out “A Recipe for Seduction” was just the kind of comfort America’s eyeballs needed. The KFC Lifetime mini-movie created a tidal wave of buzz for KFC. It generated 1.8 billion impressions, trended #1 on YouTube, outperformed Lifetime’s ratings among the 18-49 audience by 173% vs the prior 4 week time period average, increased KFC consideration among Lifetime viewers from 24% to 42%, brought in 55K new KFC buyers and helped to drive a 54% year-over-year sales lift on UberEats. We also catapulted Mario Lopez to trend nationally on Twitter, and be mentioned in a skit on Saturday Night Live.