MARKETING Magazine Asia

The following is a case study on Astro’s winning partnership with KFC Malaysia.

Overview

School holidays spelled trouble for KFC because their Malay loyalists would travel out for staycations, foregoing their preferred KFCs in favour of the laksa in Penang and nasi ganja in Ipoh. With their customers’ eating patterns changing during the holidays, KFC had a huge task ahead – to compete with the travelling culture and regain product relevance among the Malays, their main target audience.

Strategy and execution

Both Astro and KFC identified that regardless of travel plans, there are two things that their main target audience reacted positively to all year round: a good sense of humor and entertaining and hilarious content.

KFC wanted their fried chicken to be the loyal companion for its consumers as they enjoyed themselves.

The campaign capitalised on the pinnacle of comedy in Malaysia : MaharajaLawakMega, the highest rated comedy show and a raging phenomenon with Malays, by launching right in the middle of school holidays. Astro spun off various assets of MaharajaLawakMega such as the comedians, content nuggets, episodes, sketches and seamlessly weaved KFC into them.

‘EPISODES’ MADE BETTER WITH FRIED CHICKEN
Fried chicken became the star of the show with comedians integrating KFC into their comedy sketches. Chicken jokes stormed the media with entertaining episodes across TV and digital.

‘MOVIE AND DRAMA SCENES’ MADE BETTER WITH FRIED CHICKEN
The MaharajaLawakMega comedians took original scenes from 2018′s top Malay dramas & peppered it with a Chicken & Comedy twist. Releasing these parodies on social media unleashed a barrage of conversations.

‘COMEDIAN GOSSIP INTERVIEWS’ MADE BETTER WITH FRIED CHICKEN
Gossip being integral to Malay content, a ‘KFCPartyLounge’ was built for comedians to dish out juicy gossip, while feasting on KFC’s juicy chicken! These nuggets were amplified via social & video buys and vignettes on TV.

‘RADIO COMEDY SKETCHES’ MADE BETTER WITH FRIED CHICKEN
On radio, listeners were entertained with audio comedy sketches, all ending with fried chicken as the star.

‘IN STORE PRANKS’ MADE BETTER WITH FRIED CHICKEN
In KFC stores, LawakMega comedians disguised themselves as KFC employees and entertained customers with their pranks and rewarding them with free chicken. Videos of the pranks were released online, creating plenty of brand mentions.