Our campaign centred around the data-led experiment at the heart of this whacky brand customer experience.

Media and consumers were invited to try on the ‘Brainwave Bucket’ whilst eating KFC and see whether comfort food (fried chicken) would help them relax. During the session, people's bio-feedback was captured and displayed in real-time on the interface of the device’s app. The more a person's stress levels went down, the more free chicken they were entitled to.

The live curation of data was key, as the instant brain response triggers a real-time outcome in-store, driving sales and also awareness.

KFC WAS LOSING TRACTION AND LTO CAMPAIGN EFFECTIVENESS WAS WEAKENING

KFC is the original leader of fried chicken in Hong Kong but the brand was losing traction when chicken was also sold by the vast array of fast food options. Limited Time Offer (LTO) promotions ran monthly and weren’t as able to drive orders and sales anymore.

COMPETITION WAS OUTSPENDING KFC SIGNIFICANTLY IN PAID MEDIA

McDonald’s, the main competitor, was outspending KFC by multiples in advertising. With a much smaller budget, KFC had to be creative and find ways to gain publicity through earned media and organic sharing.

OUR CHALLENGE: SHOW THAT EARNED CREATIVE GROWS SALES MORE EFFECTIVELY THAN LTO

With a tiny budget of USD 32,000, we couldn’t afford any advertising and would have to earn attention from, to attract people to visit and eat at KFC.

Hong Kong is one of the most stressed cities in the world. And one of the main triggers of stress amongst our core demographic of 15-40 year-olds is overthinking.

But we came across scientific studies showing that comfort food reduces stress. As the leader of juicy fried chicken, the ultimate comfort food, we wanted to put this theory to test by challenging Hong Kongers to relax in our world of Finger Lickin’ Good chicken.

We flipped the famous KFC Bucket upside down and added a built-in real-time brainwave detection device and turned it into a helmet which determined the stress level of the person wearing it – and in doing so created a fun piece of technology for people and news outlets to identify with and talk about.

To enable people to experience our invention, we created the Brainwave Bucket booth and activation in the KFC’s flagship store.

The KFC brand focused on developing a relationship with Gen Z (15-27 y.o.) while continuing to appeal to its core customers of DINKs and families (27-40 y.o.).

Secondary research told us Hong Kong is the most stressed city in East Asia, with people overthinking everything from money and big life decisions, to what their friends think, or what to have for lunch. We believed the topic of stress and overthinking would resonate across demographics.

We uncovered scientific papers that show comfort food physiologically reducing stress. And we knew that our world-famous fried chicken is the ultimate comfort food for many people around Hong Kong.

And so rather than talk about it, all we needed to do was show people that our fried chicken had the power to momentarily ease their overactive minds – and the most compelling way to do this is with a live trial using real-time data.

Our message ‘KFC is the comfort you need to ease your overactive mind’ was integral to the campaign, and the Brainwave Bucket was designed to test this theory and show it to be true, using people's biometric data in real-time.

The Brainwave Bucket has a built-in brainwave detection device which connects to an app.

When wearing the Brainwave Bucket, people’s bio-feedback is captured and displayed on the interface of the app in real-time.

People wore the Brainwave Bucket and the device monitored the person’s brain activity and displayed the data on screen in real-time.

Once the session was complete, the app gave a reading which reflected how much the participant’s mind was eased after consuming fried chicken.

The real-time bio-feedback data determined how comforting KFC is for each person and which reward they received for taking part. The more the stress levels went do, the more free chicken they got.

BECOMING THE TALK OF THE TOWN

Brand Objective: Drive positive sentiment about KFC

Brand Results: With a tiny budget of USD 32,000, we couldn’t afford any advertising and would have to earn attention. Our campaign was covered by major news, business, lifestyle, and technology media, helping us to reach consumers for free.

213 news outlets shared articles

1.2+ billion impressions

US$1.5M earned media value

100% of articles delivered positive sentiment

STRONG SALES, HIGHER ROI WITH EARNED MEDIA

Business Objective: Show that earned creative could deliver stronger traffic and sales than LTO campaigns

Business Results: Our activation held at a single KFC store managed to increase orders and sales for stores across the entire city compared to the previous month when LTO campaigns ran with advertising.

+17.1% in sales over Hong Kong (vs. previous month)

+11.68% increase in orders (vs. the previous month)

KFC COMPETES WITH A WIDE RANGE OF COMPETITORS, NOT ONLY MCDONALD'S

The fast-food market in Hong Kong is highly competitive. With most locals preferring Chinese food from affordable local cafes, it puts western fast food at an inherent disadvantage. Furthermore, people in the city often see “western fast food” as one category, and thus, KFC isn’t only in competition against other major fried chicken players and McDonald’s, it is also competing against burger outlets, pizza delivery, sandwiches, Mexican and so much more.

COVID RESTRICTIONS LED TO BIG DECLINES IN RESTAURANT SALES

Hong Kong was still under one of the world’s strictest Covid-19 regimes at the time of the campaign, which put multiple restrictions on restaurants and caused traffic and sales across all restaurants to fall. The number of orders and sales across all Hong Kong restaurants in 2022 fell 9.5% and 4.2% respectively compared with 2021.