Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase

Objective & Challenge
Malaysia lifted its strict lockdown on 9 June and entered a ‘Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) phase’, reopening the economy in stages that will last in between 10 June and 31 August. Although we are now free to roam, we still needed to adapt to the new normal and practice the safety SOPs outlined by the Malaysian Government. We anticipated that most QSR restaurants will have campaigns talking about safety procedues, how to behave when you come into a store, and to of course come and visit. KFC was also suffering from “out of sight, out of mind” since dineins were forbidden during the strict lockdown. KFC lost 5%10% in their brand health, from Buzz to Consideration, amongst their Current Customers etc. But KFC wanted to welcome Malaysians differently when their stores reopen instead of doing the regular announcements.

Insight & Strategy
Over the past few months, restaurants have generally been quiet and lonely. If only the tables, chairs, trays and sauce dispensers could speak, they would probably tell people how much they have been longing for their presence. During the lockdown, Malaysians have turned to social media and streaming services to fill time. They use music to cope with “work from home” (WFH) and some find it more productive when they listen to music while WFH. Half a million mentions and posts throughout MCO and CMCO period, with 80% net sentiments. Good, Best Therapy, Enjoy, Favourite, Better were some of the top terms mentioned. As KFC reopened its stores for dineIn across the country, instead of telling Malaysians nagging them on what to do, our strategy was to serenade people back through songs instead of doing the regular announcement to show how much we missed our customers.

Execution
KFC launched a specially curated 86track Spotify playlist titled ‘KFC You Soon’ to serenade customers back to its stores. To promote the playlist, a dedication musicparody video of the lovelorn from the store’s perspective was launched. Borrowing popular song lyrics, the video features a KFC store humorously serenading the return of dinein. The video features the best of “Missing you” songs, to commemorate each of the 86 days that dinein ser vices were unavailable at KFC. This playlist was further amplified through social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and not forgetting Spotify users, to create awareness, buzz and drive traffic to ‘KFC U Soon’ playlist. We also had the safety SOPs announcements in between songs but they were done in the style of a radio show, with two DJs talking to each other.

Effectiveness
Overall, KFC U Soon really made Malaysians think KFC U Soon campaign is largely positive with a cumulative 88% positive sentiment on social. It has reached more than 3millions Facebook users and been viewed 2.5millions times on YouTube. Many consumers complimented on the ad, thanking KFC for the playlist, asked their friends to listen to the playlist or to watch the ad by tagging them and also commenting they will be back soon to dine in. KFC U Soon video garnered the highest positive sentiments with 41% Looking at YouGov Brand Health metrics from start of RMCO until 2weeks into launched of KFC U Soon campaign, we observed the following uplift (w/c 15/6/2020 vs. 30/6/2020) Ad Awareness from 71.6% to 77.0% Buzz from 43.3% to 55.5% Consideration from 48.1% to 54.4% Purchase Intent: 15.9% to 26.4% Current Customers from 51.8% to 56.5%