Sports marketing is a big business on a $48.4 billion spending spree. But while big brands buy their way into sports – through endorsement deals, naming rights, and in-game promotions – few are able to find cheap and innovative ways to engage with sports fans.

So while brands like McDonald’s and Subway paid to be official sponsors of the NBA and their teams, KFC hacked its way onto the court with a unique sponsorship opportunity of our own. Only instead of sponsoring the players, we sponsored the fans with a finger lickin’ endorsement deal open to anyone.

In Canada, basketball fans are big on Quick-Service Restaurants (QSR) with 75% of them being regular fast-food customers. Yet, herein lies the problem: basketball is already saturated with QSR brands vying for the attention of basketball fans.

A key competitor in this space is McDonald’s, who has spent millions of sponsorship dollars with the NBA – reportedly giving away more than 700,000 free fries in one season, individual player endorsements, and seasonal campaigns with the Toronto Raptors.

Not to mention, other KFC competitors, including Mary Brown’s and Subway have also made significant investments in basketball – securing multiple player endorsements with the Toronto Raptors, including former Rookie of the Year Scottie Barnes.

We had a tall order: how do we build a relationship with basketball fans without an official NBA partnership or player endorsement?

Even though KFC is drastically outspent in the basketball space, it still remains the #1 choice for "best tasting chicken" in Canada. This indicates that basketball enthusiasts were still buying the Colonel's original recipe chicken, albeit not during game time. Our challenge was getting them to order KFC while watching the game, making buckets and buckets a match made in heaven.

As a challenger brand with zero sponsorship deals, we saw this as an opportunity to embed ourselves in basketball culture by shifting our focus from the players to the fans – making KFC the most loved QSR in basketball.

Our brief: cut through the sponsorship clutter by finding a culturally relevant way to connect with basketball fans without an official partnership.

Consumer data shows that 43% of sports fans share their reactions on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok while watching live sports.

With this in mind, we knew making a splash during the game was our ticket to stealing the show from an official sponsor online. But, we needed a reason to crash the scene. So, we found the one thing our competitors couldn’t compete with – cultural relevance through finger licking.

Our strategy? Hack our way into the NBA by putting the "finger lickin' good" celebration at the centre of a nation-wide fan engagement campaign.

From the free-throw line or after a clutch three, finger licking has always been a part of basketball. And as the brand who put finger lickin’ on the map since 1952, KFC saw an opportunity to insert itself in basketball culture by being the first brand to own a basketball celebration – “the finger lickin’ good” celly.

So, instead of paying for an expensive endorsement deal, we created a sponsorship opportunity of our own – KFC’s Finger Lickin’ Open Endorsement. An endorsement deal open to anyone – from streamers, rec leaguers, basketball fans, and more.

The social campaign operated under a simple mechanic: film yourself shooting a bucket, do the finger lickin’ good celly, and tag @kfc_canada for a shot at being endorsed in KFC.

To launch, we infiltrated the NBA by sneaking our biggest brand asset, Colonel Sanders, courtside at the Raptors vs. Pacers game, alongside basketball’s biggest shoot coach, Lethal Shooter – who has coached for the likes of Drake, Giancarlo Esposito, and Anthony Davis. The stunt made national news, making KFC a top-trending topic on Twitter, quickly stealing the shine from McDonald’s.

Our impact quickly grew from fans, streamers and rec leaguers to NCAA athletes, who embraced KFC’s Finger Lickin’ Open Endorsement during one of basketball’s biggest tournaments, March Madness. The domino effect even reached the NBA, prompting the Maverick’s own, Luka Doncic, to do the FLG celly in-game against the Rockets – putting KFC at the forefront of basketball culture.

The results of the campaign were outstanding. By finding an ownable way to tap into basketball fandom, KFC generated a whopping $17,469,000 in Earned Media Value (EMV).

But our campaign didn’t just generate buzz, it changed brand perception in a big way. In just one month, KFC became one of the top brands associated with basketball, overtaking our biggest competitor and NBA sponsor, McDonald’s. And we did it all for $0 in sponsorships.

By incentivizing KFC’s tagline (“it’s finger lickin’ good”) in a culturally relevant way, KFC solidified itself in basketball culture as the first brand to own a basketball celebration, offering basketball fans yet another reason to lick their fingers.