Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase

Objective & Challenge
The ever-changing consumer expectations in recent years continues to reshape the Quick-Service-Restaurant industry. Being good is just not enough. Consumers are spoilt for choice from a plethora of delivery players, and their irresistible promotions pose a risk to KFC’s delivery orders. Established competitors like McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and Domino’s have decades of experience in the food delivery segment. KFC is the new kid on the block. With digital marketing, targeting is core, but finding the most relevant users online was difficult. To top it off, a legacy MMP (Mobile Measurement Partner) posed a huge challenge, showing inadequate insights into previous campaigns, making campaign optimisation challenging. There were two main objectives here: – Drive more online sales and transactions via KFC’s website and app. – Encourage more Malaysians to utilise KFC’s other owned channels – self-collect and curb side pick-up services.

Insight & Strategy
To execute this campaign successfully, we needed to drive mental availability. Audience targeting context is core, fighting for attention to drive brand recall and being the brand with recency in the right channel and the right menu is our road to success. After all, the way to everyone’s heart, IS through their stomach. So, we deployed a strategy to whet user’s appetites. Given our lower penetration base, cutthroat competition and new adoption of food delivery, we utilised a full-funnel media strategy to dial up on emotional vs. rational messages to make all Malaysians hungry even before they know it. Firstly, driving brand recall to maximise reach is important to get awareness and expand new user base. Using highest impact formats, we wanted to increase consideration to mass audiences (adult 15+). With driving purchases, we had to narrow down audiences to focus on the Quick-Service-Restaurant category to increase conversion with shorter formats to drive recency. With the help of a consumer intelligence platform, we identified new users with high affinity to order food, shopping and food apps. These users were acquired both on app and web via a unified approach within 5 core media channels: 1. MAAS Exchange = Ad network/ direct publisher 2. mDSP = Programmatic buys on Ad Exchanges 3. OEM = Ad placements on Oppo Vivo Xiaomi / app discovery 4. Social = FB IG Tiktok and up to 50 other social channels 5. Apple Search Ads = by running fixed Cost per Install buys on Apple Search Ads The CPA campaign optimised towards “First Orders” to get audiences yet to utilise the website/ app for first purchase. Thus, we increased online sales and app downloads. This first of its kind activation meant once we successfully got the first order, customers are 50% more likely to be KFC loyal. For users with app, but yet to make first purchase, we deployed targeted reach using performance-led mouth-watering messages to push First Order conversion. All target audiences are harvested, and lookalikes created to ensure full funnel strategy. To ensure full coverage, non-installed users were targeted with separate messaging to ensure a consistently flowing funnel. The app install to first order rate was measured to indicate accurate targeting. And with custom audiences, we profiled existing audiences based on purchase/ browsing behaviours.

Execution
We deployed our full funnel media strategies in three phases: (1) Inspire first transaction by appearing in the environment they are engaged in using a proprietary consumer intelligence platform. (2) Convert new users by predicting what they will like through using algorithmically curated menus based on preference and likelihood to click on and purchase. (3) Remind existing KFC customers to order with us again based on their purchase cycle and history. These phases are executed in 6 major steps: Inspire (category reach) Step 1: Inspiring and tempting first time users with mouth-watering offers based on historical browsing behaviours beyond the Google/ Meta environment. Step 2: Activated these audiences through strategic contextual targeting based on mobile app inventories to trigger cravings during gaming, browsing and streaming activities. Top funnel ROI increased by +36%. Convert (targeted reach) Step 3: Audiences are harvested, and with dynamic social activations, users are targeted with specially curated menus based on their food preferences and previous browsing behaviours. Dynamic product ads work in such a way where the first visual is usually based on food options so users will have a higher tendency to convert as they have previously browsed similar food options across the web. Step 4: Based on insights obtained in step 3, we identified up to 30 variations of personalised mouth-watering options. These offers were activated for users to choose from, and this contributed to +57% incremental number of cravings satisfied (conversion). Remind (performance) Step 5: To ensure total coverage, engagement on existing users were activated via retargeting with In-app ads and dynamic social activations. Step 6: Highly relevant and targeted messages based on previous purchase habits were served. This resulted in an incremental growth of +13% in sales uplift versus the prior month. Throughout the campaign, we identified highest performing creatives on mobile that worked in line with our objectives. We curated personalized menus based on KFC’s offerings based on user’s preferences. This allowed us to decide on the best creative types and sizes to maximise efficiency, thus minimizing creative wastage and maximising ROI on ad spend. Finally, KFC ran a split test comparing its performance against its business-as-usual photo ads that were deployed with the conversion objectives.

Effectiveness
With personalised dynamic ads and full funnel seamless strategy from anticipation to seeding purchases, we successfully increased online purchases: – 185% more transactions, vs 5-months prior campaign deployment – Overall, CPA reduced by 46%, vs 5-months prior campaign deployment Overall, KFC successfully increased both online purchases and operational efficiency. The brand’s split test provided the following results (15 Jun-5 Jul): – 57% more purchases (both web + app) vs. business as usual – 84% more in-app purchases vs. Business-As-Usual – 37% lower cost per action vs Business-As-Usual