KFC’s ambition is to be the ‘King of Treats’. Problem is, as much as people love our food, many remain embarrassed to be seen eating it in public, or carrying our branded bags around. It’s called ‘bag shame’.

So, our brief was to help Australians overcome their perceptions of KFC being 'low quality food' that they were embarrassed to be seen with and normalise eating KFC.

We needed to reach as many Australians as possible, and show them that KFC is quality food that you could be proud to be seen eating in public.

We’d noticed a social behaviour in Australia of couples and bridal parties stopping off at KFC to eat between the wedding ceremony and reception, so we leveraged that to help us normalise eating KFC and overcome 'bag shame'.

We created ‘KFC Weddings’. A full-service wedding offering giving Aussies the chance to have the most public day of their lives themed and catered with KFC. A fried chicken lovers dream. And, a timely reminder that KFC is quality food that can be proudly served and eaten at the most public and important of occasions.

Our strategy was to reach as many Australians as possible, but with a twist. We wanted people to discover the idea organically.

This mass exposure would help create the belief that it was fine to be seen publicly devouring KFC - without fear of judgement. We needed to be seen as a natural part of Aussies' lives. And there is no more public day than peoples wedding day, so this is where the PR strategy focused.

To tell a well-rounded story, we created the following:

- 2 x print ads featuring KFC in a premium wedding shot.

- Media release with all the information on what was going on and how people could get involved.

- Fan sourced images from personally held KFC weddings and receptions.

- Video assets and images from the first two official KFC Weddings.

We launched with a print ad somewhere place no one would expect to see KFC, but somewhere brides and grooms wouldn’t miss us - the glossy, high-end fashion pages of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar Bridal Edition. 

The ad drove chicken loving lovers to the KFC Weddings website where they could apply to have a themed, fully catered KFC wedding experience. Which over 3,000 couples did.

It proved to be a print ad that got Australia - and the world – talking, along with the entries flooding in.  

On 29th Feb 2020, we held the world’s first official KFC Wedding in Queensland with Kate and Harry saying “I Do”. Paul and Sam in Melbourne exchanged vows a week later. 

Each new wedding further normalising the behaviour of eating our delicious fried chicken.

KFC Weddings was a PR juggernaut.

Across the two major milestone moments, the announcement of the KFC Weddings service and the first KFC Wedding, the campaign resulted in an astounding 2,160 pieces of coverage stories landing both nationally and internationally across TV, radio, print, online and social media.

In total we reached a whopping 1.2 billion people (not bad for a country of just 25 million) with our quality food message.

KFC Weddings wasn’t just a PR campaign that successfully penetrated culture to remind Aussies that KFC is quality food, it also helped achieve a sales growth of 5.3% Now that’s something to celebrate!