Most YouTube ads are just adaptations of film commercials. Content that millennials can’t wait to click after the 5-second countdown. We decided to add highly-targeted context, by creating a Hot & Cheezy burger who flirted with the viewers, spouting pickup lines based on what the audience was searching for on YouTube.

Also. Malaysia is still a very TV-centric nation. Most made-for-tv commercials have already been seen by the audience, so adapting it into YouTube will just encourage them to skip the moment the 5-second counter goes down.

The key idea: To obtain trending data at the time to make relevant cheezy jokes in context with what the person is watching on Youtube.

We identified a list of categories such as sports, education, animals, music videos and among other and each category had 30-50 raw data that we would need to filer to ensure that not only that the content is falls within the category and whether it was suitable.

After narrowing the different content in each category, we would then pick a specific topic to be relevant about. If it was under sports, we would be picking soccer as the content that we will build our flirty lines with.

Viewing completion rates are touching 35% (breaking Google Malaysia’s record for pre-roll view through rates). These are strong results, given that the average view rate for any pre-roll campaign in Malaysia is only around 17%.

KFC Hot and Cheezy burger sales have increased by 16% week-on-week, immediately after the launch of Hot and Cheezy. It did so well they had a different marketing problem- KFC might run out of burgers to sell even before the campaign ends. This has been the best performing burger for KFC in many years.

Within two weeks of the campaign launch, Google also included Hot & Cheezy into their media gallery hall of fame, a repository of campaigns where people come for inspiration.

Using careful analysis of YouTube video viewing data of Malaysian audiences, we crafted individual scripts tailor-made to the exact video they are watching, and programmatically distributed it to Malaysians nationwide.

Fresh data was collected weekly, and new films produced overnight with new scripts that were tailor-made to match trending, topical content.

We needed content that’s as varied and as entertaining as the YouTube content our audiences watch. So we created a character called Hot & Cheezy, a burger who flirted with Malaysians based on the exact video they were watching.

If you were watching news about Malaysian politics (a popular topic), for sure Hot & Cheezy burger would ask you to be his Minister of Home Affairs.

If you were watching a replay of the online game DOTA 2, he would ask if you were Necrophos (a character in the game) because you were a heart stopper.

Using data supplied by google, we curated and shortlisted the top trending videos in Malaysia on YouTube weekly. Over 100 tailor-made pre-rolls were shot within a month, often based on fresh data from the day before.

KFC wanted to launch the Hot & Cheezy Burger.

Problem was, when it comes to burgers, McDonald's is the top choice for millennials. They wouldn't even dream of stepping into KFC, only families and people who love fried chicken go to KFC.