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

Our job was to help Australians overcome this shame and normalise eating KFC.

The objective was to reach as many Australians as possible and show them that eating KFC is nothing to be ashamed of. That you could even be proud to be seen eating it in public.

After noticing a social behaviour in Australia of couples and bridal parties stopping off at KFC to eat between the wedding ceremony and reception, we knew leveraging it to help us normalise eating KFC and helping overcome the issue of 'bag shame' was the solution.

We launched ‘KFC Weddings’.

The full-service wedding offering giving Aussies the chance to have the most public day of their lives fully themed and catered with KFC.

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, 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.

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

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.

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

With more weddings set to roll out in the future, each new wedding further normalises the behaviour of eating our delicious fried chicken.

The campaign resulted in over 2,160 media stories, with a whopping 1.2 billion media impressions - not bad for a country of just 24 million - and helping KFC achieve sales growth of 4.9%. But most importantly, it made Aussies feel better about eating KFC in public.