Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase

Objective & Challenge
The year-end holidays are here but unlike the previous year, some travel restrictions were lifted as new cases were on a downturn towards the end of 2021. Time for everyone to start planning their year-end holidays after a long hiatus from the lockdowns and state border restrictions. This time of holidays is the perfect time to celebrate with KFC’s annual Holiday Bucket – positioned to bring family and friends together around a chicken favourite group meal. This was a perfect time to embrace the holiday bucket as Malaysians were buoyant to meet up again with family and friends, as the previous year’s celebrations was muted due to the pandemic spike. As the challenge of travel remained, we set out to inspire the feeling of holidays and this ambition of wanderlust. We looked to tie these special moments of holiday travel and inspire happy moments through the Atuk Kepci Dream Holliday campaign. Our objective: to ensure that Malaysians continued with the longstanding tradition of celebrations with KFC’s Holiday Bucket.

Insight & Strategy
According to the NextVacay platform, a flight deal alert service, Google searches for travel videos jumped 350% in 2021. We took these insights to heart and planted our strategy firmly to ride on the buzz of holiday planning. To fill that wanderlust, we wanted to inspire Malaysians on a journey around the country with the adventurous “Atuk Kepci”, together with his favourite Holiday Bucket. Since international borders remained closed, KFC inspired consumers to travel and celebrate domestically with Atuk Kepci, our local fan favourite version of Colonel Sanders as he fulfilled his “Holiday Bucket List” with the help from Malaysians from all walks of life. We leveraged the must-have tool for travel inspo – Instagram. Through Instagram, Malaysians get to recommend, decide, debate and vote where Atuk Kepci should go, and what he should do, as if it’s their own holiday! While he ticked off activities and destinations on his #KFCHolidayBucketList, ONE thing he always brings along on his trips to share with his fans – the KFC Holiday Bucket.

Execution
For the uninitiated, the celebrity chosen to personify “Atuk Kepci” is Izzue Islam @IzzueIslam on Instagram. In short, you will know him as our local Colonel Sanders. Our “Atuk Kepci” not only has a strong 3.1mil followers, he is a true KFC fan, taking us through the 3 stages of holiday planning. Here’s how Atuk Kepci led Malaysians to fulfil their wanderlust and live vicariously through him… DREAMING: To travel is to dream. It’s to envision yourself in a place or space, doing something you love. Atuk Kepci kick-started the dreaming phase of the campaign by announcing that he needed ideas. This set off a flurry of activity from fans who pitched in their thoughts on where he should go and what he needed to do for his holiday. PLANNING: To travel is to plan. It’s about making those dreams concrete to see how it will all take shape from the mind to in practice. In this phase of planning, Atuk Kepci took over KFC’s Instagram to showcase beautiful places in Malaysia. This encouraged engagement from fans as they all weighed in via polls to vote on his next holiday activity. This was pushed with urgency through a countdown-post, reminding Malaysians to view KFC’s Instagram Stories to vote and make the plan concrete! TRAVEL: To travel is to live! And live vicariously through Atuk Kepci is what Malaysians did! Based on fans’ suggestions, Atuk Kepci travelled all over Malaysia sharing and posting activities based on Malaysia’s votes. From beach getaways to taking selfies with horses and even archery! In the end, it was the simplicity of travel that was highlighted. What Malaysians wanted to do most was to connect. And through this engagement, the Holiday Bucket was the hero that brought Malaysians together to curate Malaysia’s top five bucket lists with Atuk Kepci.

Effectiveness
Atuk Kepci did not just share his holiday joys (and KFC Holiday Bucket) with those he met throughout his activities, he also shared how Malaysians were eager to fulfill their wanderlust, and excited to experience diverse activities such as horse-riding, kayaking and eBiking. More importantly, it was a gift of connection, to all to his 3.17millions followers, proving that living vicariously through Atuk Kepci and the #HolidayBucketList was a fan favourite! More than 6,000 votes were generated for AtukKepci’s #KFCHolidayBucketlist. The average engagement rate was 4.9x higher vs benchmark of 1.2%. And it achieved a good completion rate with an average of 87% and only 13% drop off rate vs. a norm of 79%.