KFC cel­e­brates it’s 50th anniver­sary this year, and the brand has launched a cam­paign strat­e­gy that aims to win new cus­tomers by nur­tur­ing an emo­tion­al con­nec­tion with con­sumers to match the love they have for the brand’s “fin­ger lickin’ good” prod­uct. The her­itage cam­paign will be cham­pi­oned by a dig­i­tal first phi­los­o­phy that seeks to match a “very strong prod­uct mes­sage” with an equal­ly “strong brand mes­sage”.

The white-haired, white-suit­ed, Colonel Sanders’ has become a fig­ure of mod­ern leg­end. His recipe for spe­cial­ty Ken­tucky Fried Chick­en, coat­ed with a secret blend of 11 herbs and spices, is one of the great exam­ples of the Amer­i­can Dream; a glob­al fran­chise built from hum­ble begin­nings, on the strength of a time­less prod­uct that has served hun­gry fam­i­lies around the world for gen­er­a­tions.

It’s rather fit­ting that the flag­ship video con­tent for the fast-food chain’s #50YearsofKFC anniver­sary cam­paign revolves around the theme of fam­i­ly.

A video cre­at­ed by Bar­tle Bogle Hegar­ty tells the sto­ry of a fos­ter child’s expe­ri­ence bond­ing with a new fam­i­ly, and even­tu­al­ly grow­ing up and start­ing his own. The ad’s mes­sage sug­gest that while life, and indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences, may change, the things that bring peo­ple togeth­er – the brands that are always there for them through­out their lives – remain the same.

Emotional Connections

This video isn’t KFC’s first attempt to build an emo­tion­al con­nec­tion with con­sumers. Last year’s Christ­mas cam­paign video, “The Boy Who Learnt To Share”, told the touch­ing tale of 6‑year-old Char­lie, who learns about the joy of shar­ing at Christ­mas with the help of KFC.

An ear­li­er cam­paign, “Fans”, also has the same sim­ple mes­sage:

Each sto­ry, essen­tial­ly a short film, depicts sim­ple sto­ries of fam­i­lies that are brought togeth­er with a KFC meal at unre­mark­able, but nonethe­less touch­ing moments of their every­day lives.

As KFC mar­ket­ing Chief David Timm told Mar­ket­ing Mag­a­zine, “KFC is now look­ing to “con­nect with [con­sumers] on an emo­tion­al lev­el rather than appeal to the ratio­nal side of their brain.”

The great Stan­ley Kubrick knew the pow­er of sim­ple but effec­tive emo­tion­al sto­ry­telling in an brand’s adver­tis­ing mes­sages — as Syd­ney Pol­lack revealed the direc­tor had a lit­tle known obses­sion with Eng­lish Nescafe ads, impressed by their abil­i­ty to forge a emo­tion­al con­nec­tion with view­ers with poignant, effi­cient sto­ry­telling.

The KFC adverts are very much to the same mer­it. The strat­e­gy is to make KFC a brand “avail­able for every­body,” rather than focussing on a “nar­row appeal,” Timm said. The sea-change in strat­e­gy is based on research that con­sumers now expect a lev­el of authen­tic­i­ty that enables them to con­nect with a brand on an emo­tion­al lev­el.

It means that the chal­lenge for KFC is in con­vert­ing the “love [con­sumers have] of [their] prod­uct into the love of [their] brand”. Nat­u­ral­ly, it is also the brand’s biggest oppor­tu­ni­ty. Timm con­tin­ued:

“Mar­ket­ing as a whole is under­go­ing trans­for­ma­tion. We now know through neu­ro­science how people’s brains work and what affects their deci­sion-mak­ing. So what we’re try­ing to do is take the new knowl­edge and say – this is how we put it togeth­er, this is how a brain actu­al­ly works – and this is how we should be mar­ket­ing.”

At the heart of the new strat­e­gy is the con­cept that, as Timm says, peo­ple make “emo­tion­al deci­sions that are “con­text depen­dent”… KFC is aim­ing to cre­ate that con­text.”

Digital First

To pro­mote #50YearsofKFC, the fast-food chain have adopt­ed a “dig­i­tal first” phi­los­o­phy that puts the brand at the fore­front of dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing, and mobi­lizes the brand for the next decade rather than the next year. As Timm explained:

“If you fast for­ward 10 years from now nobody’s going to be think­ing ‘TV and dig­i­tal’ – it’s going to be dig­i­tal first. So philo­soph­i­cal­ly we’ve made the change, prac­ti­cal­ly we’ve made the change.”

To accom­pa­ny the #50YearsofKFC cam­paign, KFC are offer­ing am effec­tive life­time’s sup­ply of KFC for those will­ing to put their words to actions. Faced with the prospect of 50 years of free Ken­tucky Fried Chick­en, eager fans have flocked to the brand’s social media chan­nels to voice what they would do for a life­time’s sup­ply of free chick­en.

The response from KFC social media rep­re­sen­ta­tives sug­gests that we may well see cov­er­age of some of these devot­ed fan’s antics in the com­ing weeks and months.

Concept Stores

Adopt­ing a dig­i­tal mind­set can trans­form every aspect of a brand’s busi­ness and ser­vice deliv­ery. The com­mit­ment to trans­form the KFC brand itself into some­thing con­sumers can love, has meant more than revis­ing the brand’s mar­ket­ing – the brand’s stores them­selves have been redesigned from chaot­ic coun­ters with the express aim of serv­ing fast food, to a space in which con­sumers can feel at home.

KFC’s con­cept store in Brack­nell fea­tures a cof­fee bar, com­plete with break­fast muffins and pas­tries in a attempt to draw the morn­ing break­fast crowd. Upstairs, a spa­cious din­ing area set to ambi­ent back­ground music is more rem­i­nis­cent of mod­ern cof­fee shops than the func­tion­al plas­tic envi­ron­ment typ­i­cal­ly asso­ci­at­ed with fast food chains.

For the most part, it seems the brand has plen­ty of rea­son to cel­e­brate, as they approach their 50th year with a vision and strat­e­gy that seeks to deliv­er real change.

“The most impor­tant thing for our brand is the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence,” Timm said, “What you see in adver­tis­ing is impor­tant, but not near­ly as impor­tant as what the brand actu­al­ly deliv­ers.”

Fin­ger lickin’ fin­gers crossed – the brand may just find suc­cess in both.

Do you think KFC’s dig­i­tal first strat­e­gy will help the brand take first place in the fast food indus­try?