Did you know that people steal KFC’s product photos? Yes, it happens.

Counterfeits are everywhere. Clothes, bags, shoes, phones, watches, jewelry, movies, and everything in between. But a thing that is commonly counterfeited is something you wouldn’t expect: KFC photos.

From the largest cities to the smallest villages across the MENA region, restaurants, corner shops and cafeterias share a very familiar set of photos: KFC’s fried chicken, Zingers, Twisters, etc. And the reality was that there was very little KFC could do about it.

That’s not the worst part. KFC is very proud of their photos. They’re intentionally crafted to be mouthwatering, craveable. Anyone gets tempted by them.

However, these photos were being murdered: copied in low resolution, stretched, inverted, distorted, even pixelated beyond recognition.

A crime against KFC’s reputation.

If others were going to steal product shots from KFC, well, at least do it properly.

It is said that imitation is the best form of flattery; and KFC was being flattered over and over again. Besides, we can’t sue every one of them… So why fight an endless battle?

Instead of pursuing them, let’s help them do KFC’s bidding: if you want to steal our photos, do it right. After all, the better it looks, the more KFC can benefit. The more others use KFC photos, the better.

At the same time, it was time everyone knew the truth: our food looks so good, others can’t help themselves. While images are easy to steal, Finger Lickin’ Good taste is not.

Introducing KFC Chicken Stock: an image database filled with delicious drool-worthy chicken for anyone to use by downloading high-resolution KFC photos in all their glory, absolutely free.

KFC’s reputation was on the line.

KFC puts a lot of effort into not just making their food taste great but look amazing as well. You could say these are the reasons for your sudden cravings - and others were using them. Worse: counterfeit copies were also ruining them.

Those beautifully produced images, taken and retouched with care and intention, were beyond recognition. Bad resolution, cropped, distorted. And some of them even shamelessly carried elements from the KFC brandbook.

The central problem here? Crappy misplaced KFC photos could ruin decades of effort in building attributes such as quality, taste and trust. That simply won’t do.

We needed a way to turn a negative situation upside down, while still owning everyone else’s food shots and bringing people’s attention to the matter.

More importantly, we wanted the truth out there: all these delicious looking chicken images come from one place: KFC.

Simply put, those stealing our photos were going to help us advertise our chicken.

In this way, anyone who used the brand’s photos was giving KFC free advertising. Instead of getting people’s mouths watering through media buys, competitors were doing it for us.

To start a conversation, we told people the truth in newspapers: “Others are stealing our pictures, but we can’t blame them, they look mouthwatering. That’s why we’re letting them do it, as long as they do it right.”

We filled our database with immaculate images of fried chicken and left it open for anyone to use. They looked too good for anyone to miss out on.

Downloading the photos also gave away their location, letting us push an OOH campaign in those locations, reinforcing the same point: “KFC is so craveable, that even competitors cannot help themselves. While our images are easy to steal, our taste isn’t.”

Our image bank made over 500+ images available for download.

And it worked! We received over 349,000 unique website visits, proving we don’t just have the most craveable chicken, but also a great sense of humor – even to counterfeiters. In fact, they even broke our website.

We got over 18,000 downloads from the MENA region and beyond (more than 40 countries to be exact). That includes Japan, China, the US, Brazil, France, and even Ukraine!

And people were talking: The campaign’s Twitter mentions reached 11,000 in one day.

Meanwhile the impact on KFC’s perception was huge as per the results of our online community survey: the brand’s “Likeability” increased 24% - a vital metric for a heritage brand.

Meanwhile, zero (yes, zero) photo thieves were arrested, and everyone enjoyed a nice meal.

Because good chicken isn’t just about great taste, it’s also about great moments together.