We sifted through multiple datasets such as holidays, weather, traffic conditions, pricing, media mix, share of media spends, etc. (including datasets not conventionally associated with impacting sales) to uncover two crucial insights.

Insight 1: Bad weather nudges people to spend more time indoors.

In H1, 7 out 10 days were considered bad weather days, either due to scorching heat brought on by El Nino or thunderstorms accompanied with heavy rains. Regression runs revealed that these bad weather days made it 74x more likely for Malaysians to stay indoors – a behavior not seen in 2015 and 2016.

Insight 2: Mobile video buys nudge sales during bad weather.

In good weather, mobile video contributed to a mere 6% of sales while TV contributed a whopping 78% of sales. However, when we examined bad weather data, the numbers flipped with mobile video accounting for 64% of sales to only 13% from TV.

Step 1: We set up a weather data bank to collect day-by-day weather data including daily temperature and rainfall information. The bank also aggregated historical data based on which thresholds had been established on what temperature/rainfall amount qualified as a bad weather day, which could impact KFC sales.

Step 2: The weather data bank API was fed into our Media Mix Model on a daily basis. When data hit the threshold establishing that it was a bad weather day, the model would adapt to alter the media mix, sending alerts to planners to pause TV buys while triggering the DSP to initiate programmatic video buys.

Step 3: The adapted model would also guide changes in media flighting and budget spread during the campaign period.

The process was sound – but only time would tell if it was sound enough to reclaim sales.

The second half of 2017 experienced bad weather too, with 6 out of 10 days deemed bad weather days. However, this time our econometric model was able to respond in real time, turning heat waves and downpours into profound sales opportunities.

KFC sales revenue grew 8% while servings increased 6%, leading to a 4-year high Media ROI of 3x.

Above all, we sparked a paradigm shift in the way media was being planned and bought. In a landscape where consumer behavior is dauntingly fragmented and erratic – we gave birth to a way of thinking about media which could keep up with the hustle. A way of thinking that had data at its heart to power business outcomes.

As a prelude to an era of change in media, KFC proved that uncovering data to generate surprising new insights can change sales as quickly as the weather – rain or shine.