Will KFC’s unfunky chicken dance catch on?

In the U.K., the fast-feeder just dropped a high-stepping campaign via Mother London that asks users to “Believe in Chicken.” The work skewers our tech-centric world as increasingly phony, portraying KFC fare as the stuff of battered and breaded reality.

There’s an almost religious fervor to the concept. Perhaps it captures the intense love KFC fans feel for the brand’s drumsticks and wings?

As for Sven Lesoria’s choreography, with performers shaking their imaginary tail-feathers through the streets, well … nobody saw that coming.

“KFC has been on a brand transformation journey, to become more modern and relevant to new generations of fans,” Mother ECD Martin Rose tells Muse. “In that time, the category caught up. So, wanting to stay a step ahead was the reason behind this next chapter. We know we have to constantly reinvent our brand to remain relevant.”

But … this feels weird for weird’s sake, kinda cultish?

“We want to entertain our fans and for them to be amused by this work,” Rose says. “We don’t tend to mirror our audience. Instead, we aim to add something new to the cultural conversation.”

Now, let’s cross the BTS highlights off our bucket list:

“Having a crowd dance around an animatronic chicken can be surprisingly complex,” Rose says. “First, there was the building of said animatronic chicken that could move with the realistic characteristics of an actual chicken. It took a lot of refinement to get the look we needed.”

During the shoot, “the ever-changing weather created challenges for continuity between takes. And having over 150 dancers from three different countries—the U.K., France, and Lithuania—presented some communication difficulties,” he says.

“Finding the correct balance of fresh and intriguing movement along with clear chicken-ness—without it ever becoming cheesy—was a constant watch out.”

We’d say it never becomes cheesy because it starts out that way. From the very first step. Those folks almost seem like zombies, mesmerized by the Colonel’s signature blend of herbs and spices,

Still, it’s memorable, and they certainly didn’t go the predictable route. The vibe’s self-aware, too. And a trippy, beak-boppin’ hen beats cats in knit hats any day.

Directed by Vedran Rupic or business club, the lead film will run across TV, cinema, BVOD online video and social platforms. 

There’s an OOH element, too:

Instruction manuals are among the least desirable things in the world to read. Audi’s campaign in Spain, “Handbook Novels,” got 20,000 people reading theirs in a manner most sneaky. For World Book Day, Ogilvy Barcelona helped the brand create a collection of fictional stories composed with keywords from its owner’s manual. The result generated a 44 percent participation rate. Not bad. Here’s hoping those avid readers also learned a thing or two about their cars.

For KFC in Spain, PS21 turned generic fried chicken brands into ambassadors. We give you “Kentucky-style everywhere. Kentucky Fried Chicken, just here.”

We’ll wrap with the avant-garde. For the upcoming Holland Festival, KesselsKramer launched a campaign that centers performing artists, toying with perspectives and proportions to reflect the event’s groundbreaking character. The work can be seen all over Amsterdam, but we’ve got a trailer below. The photography was shot by Blommers/Schumm.

Beko, ‘Inheritance’

Which of the spoiled heirs will inherit grandfather’s most prized possession? And what, exactly, is the item in question? Find out in this fun spot from VML for Beko.

Telstra, ‘Is This a Pointless Ad?’

Telstra teamed up with agency +61/Bear Meets Eagle on Fire to create a truly pointless ad … with a point, natch. It can be two things!

Porto Editora, ‘Thank You’

Porto Editora and Coming Soon Lisboa deliver a powerful message: Good teachers can make a huge and lasting difference in someone’s life.

Mercado Pago, ‘The Bored Ape Spokesperson’

Mercado Pago presents the perfect creature to talk about safe and realistic investing. Still, he probably shouldn’t get behind the wheel. Created by GUT Mexico City.

KFC, ‘Beyond the Sea’

Ogilvy South Africa brings us the story of a researchers on a remote island. Inspired by a video call, they demonstrate just how far people will go for the taste of KFC.

The joy of crispy onion rings elicits happy tears from satisfied customers in Courage’s latest work for KFC Canada. 

The work campaigns includes TV and OOH. And you won’t find a dry eye in the house.

A :30, directed by Nikki Ormerod, begins with a chef crying as he slices onions. Soon, an operatic soundtrack kicks in as various customers gobble rings and get emotional.

It doesn’t end there. A series of OOH ads ask “Who’s cutting onions?” as consumers tear into their onion rings while shedding a tear. These followed a social teaser campaign where influencers found a lone onion ring in their order of KFC fries.

Click images to enlarge:

“The music was composed by our audio partners over at Vapor Music,” says Joel Holtby, founder and co-CCO of Courage. “We fell in love with the track, specifically how the singer hits the ‘OOOOO’ at the introduction of the onion ring. The operatic approach felt fresh and dialed up the emotive humor of the film.”

CREDITS

Agency (Courage Inc)
Dhaval Bhatt: Founder + CCO
Joel Holtby: Founder + CCO
Tom Kenny: Partner + CSO
Niki Sahni: Partner + President
Lyndsey Westfall: Senior Strategist
Matt Miller: Associate Creative Director
Tommy Yong: Associate Creative Director
Emma Lorenzi: Writer
Sammy Lo: Art Director
Alex Karayannides: Group Account Director
Kyron Sobers: Account Director
Atria Ghosh: Account Supervisor
Zoe Fetsis: Account Coordinator
Clair Galea: Executive Producer
Rachel D’Ercole: Agency Producer

Production (Undivided)
Executive Producer: Scott Houghton
Line Producer  Scott Houghton
Director: Nikki Ormerod
Director of Photography: Andre Pienaar
Assistant Director: Bailey Abercrombie
PM: Brandon Pitt
Coordinator:Tyler Klementti
1st AC: Mike Dawson
2nd AC: Dorian Findlay
DIT: Ryan Alexander
VTR Operator: Jeremy Bugden
Set Designer: Nicole Billark
Buyer: Thalia Hoxford
Prop Master: Jamie Fleming
Gaffer: Eddy Mikolic
Best Boy Electric: Vasco Silva
Electric: Liam Stewart
Electric: Brandon Lee
Package Truck: Rich Pryce
Key Grip: Christian Drennan
Best Boy Grip: Tien Dong
Grip: Tracy Shaw
Grip: Jerry Romenko
Food Stylist: Nicole Young
2nd Food Stylist Asst: John Kruusi
3rd Food Stylist Asst: Kelly Jabazz
Main Dish Driver: Adrian Mizzi
Wardrobe Stylist: Julia DeBartolo
Make Up: Samantha Pickles
Continuity: Gwen Wellman
Location Manager: John Dranski
PA: Levi Albert
PA: Levi Bosch
PA: Max Carey
PA: Ofer Weis
Craft Service: Mitchel Campos
Craft Service: Ammar Kapasi

Casting
MiLO Casting
Casting Director: Stephen Milo
Production Manager: Shannon Faria

Offline Editorial
Barbershop Editing
Editor: David James Findlay

Transfer + Online + VFX
Alter Ego
Colourist: Lily Henry
Colour Assistant: Vika Svishchova
Lead Flame Artist: Sebastian Boros
Flame Assistant: Melany McEachern
Post Production Coordinator: Sam Omand
Executive Producers: Hilda Pereira
Producer: Mariya Guzova

Audio
Vapor Music
Creative Director: Ted Rosnick
Voice Director: Ted Rosnick
Engineer: Julian Rudd
Sound Design: Kevin Chamberlain
Executive Producer: Lindsey Bates
Producer: Matilde Mata

Shifting dunes. Interpretive dance. Slow-mo photography. A horse that fixes you with its nagging gaze and won’t let go.

We’re treated to all this and more in KFC Spain’s jokey promo for Eau D’uardo, a unisex fragrance based on the Colonel’s original recipe.

So, you’ll reek of geranium, mandarin, pink pepper and bergamot. Happy holidays!

Agency PS21’s :60 spoofs high-end perfume ads of yore for the intro. Yes, it’s low-hanging fruit, a style of parody done to death. It’s almost like a spoof of a spoof. And it works well on those terms, with the whole thing rocking a retro-artsy MTV vibe.

“The shoot had some difficult moments for the actors because of the physical effort involved in dancing and repeating scenes on an unsteady surface like sand, as well as getting tons of it in their mouths and eyes,” PS21 creative director Rubén Sánchez tells Muse. “We are very grateful for the effort they made to batter themselves as if they were literally pieces of breaded chicken from KFC.”

The perfume, shipped in phallic chicken-thigh packaging and named for a Christmas meme in Spain, retails for €3.99. It’s available on KFC’s app and in Spanish restaurants, with 25,000 units produced.

Buy it for your least-favorite uncle instead of socks this festive season. You’ll save some coin.

Shot by production company Macaronesia in the Canary Islands, the film will play across KFC’s social channels.

Nobody tees us up for the holidaze like U.K. grocers and department stores. Waitrose doesn’t disappoint. “It’s Time for the GOOD Stuff,” by Saatchi & Saatchi London and directed by Autumn De Wilde, is flanked by Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough.” It sports a Graham Norton cameo and is jam-packed with corny, besequinned enthusiasm. A feel-good endorphin spike to prime viewers for the commercial barrage to come. Bring on the gravy-thick emotions, the Mariah Carey covers, the complicated Santas!

We love seeing a jinn-like fire in people’s eyes. There’s lots of that in “Follow Your Spark” by Digital Cinema Media for BAFTA, promoting the U.K. org’s bursary program for young creatives. “A single spark can light the way, so our reality can catch up with our vision,” says charismatic actor Micheal Ward. Money is means. When it flows into certain hands, it’s a vote for a different kind of world.

The best thing about “Open a World of Possibilities,” for the Kia EV9 by Innocean Berlin, is the song—Låpsley’s “Painter”—and the tundra, both of which lend a sense of the epic. Does the EV9 merit such treatment? I’m sure it does to someone. Regardless, this wouldn’t be the first time vast landscapes and an esoteric bop were used to make a car feel pregnant with meaning.

“Festive Farm,” the Christmas ad for TK Maxx by Wieden+Kennedy London, brings back a stylish goat from its 2020 spot. It’s got new friends: a stylin’ alpaca, ducks sartorially inspired by Harry Styles and a hedgehog in cashmere. The beat-drop comes courtesy of Eve and Gwen Stefani: “Let Me Blow Ya Mind.” We’ll take any excuse to rock to this, even this one.

Lionel Messi won his eighth Ballon d’Or. Lay’s is very proud, and wants some of that GOAT halo, so it created a strange mixed-reality video featuring a celebratory chips bag, Messi’s likeness and the Eiffel Tower. The whole thing feels like a photobomb, but what is bombing what, exactly? Messi posted it on his socials like a good sport.

KFC’s “Forever Crispy” by Havas Paris features a bespoke track by HRCLS and depicts a retro-futuristic KFC Universe. Directed by Romain Chassaing, Havas dubs it a “crossroads between Blade Runner and The Fifth Element.” We were thinking Minority Report (for the hologrammery) and Demolition Man (the kids are literally jamming to a jingle). But we get that KFC might not savor that in less than 30 years, its entire raison d’être might be subsumed by Taco Bell. Anyhow, great world-building here.

Get a load of “All the Calls” for Britain’s Gala Bingo by Neverland. We’ve never seen a bingo ad before, and are surprised by how beautiful this one is. We blame the song—what is that? We can’t put a finger on it—and the production strategy: a heavy slowdown of neighborhood life. After a time, we start feeling weirdly heartbroken. Maybe it’s because seeing life at this speed (or lack thereof) illustrates how earnestly we strive to live, even when we’re not doing it consciously.

This strategy is also functional: Viewers are invited to “find all 90 bingo calls.” The work was shot by attaching a super-high-speed camera to an electric bike, which sped through the carefully choreographed action at 30 mph.

There’s leftover Halloween work to get through. You probably don’t need anyone to tell you “Not All Horror Is Fiction,” but agency at-thetable doubles down on that for Belgian animal rights organization Gaia. Its campaign reprises the style of old horror film posters to emphasize the nightmarish treatment animals suffer for our sakes. “Castration Chamber” appears below, but also see “Force-Fed” and “Labrats.” (Extra credit: Pair this with the insouciantly gluttonous Waitrose work!)

With agency Buzzman, Burger King in France gives us nightmarishly Daliesque AI renditions of people eating burgers, or possibly becoming them. “Happy a.i.lloween!” We’ve seen the approach before, but it never stops being creepy.

“This is not an ad; it’s a warning.” Actually, this is an ad—a rhythmically rich, vibey spot for Andalucia Tourism by Ogilvy Spain. It’s got so much duende that it pounds in our blood, like Paco de Lucía’s devilish strumming. The narrator also appears at the end, a chef’s-kiss cameo. A heady digestif to finish the week!

Turkeys seared to a crisp, as if by flames from hell. Turkeys so underdone, they might not thaw out until spring. Have we nothing to be thankful for!?

How about deliveries from KFC? Chicken’s a bird, too. Just eat it!

Getting a jump on Thanksgiving, the fast feeder’s Canadian ops and agency Courage just dropped work that’s all about scarfing down KFC and leaving kitchen calamities behind.

Themed “Thankfully, There’s KFC Delivery,” the push includes short vids stuffed with naught but despair and charred chestnuts:

Who’s up for seconds?

There’s OOH, too, and it’s equally unappetizing:

“Every year, we see tons of videos across social media documenting dramatic Thanksgiving turkey fails, which can totally ruin the day that some spend months planning,” says Cindy Marie Navarro, creative director at Courage. “We wanted to capture these exact moments that can trigger so much panic in order to illustrate that KFC is not only a tasty backup plan, but an even better first choice this holiday season.”

We’ve seen a bucketful of kooky, attention-grabbing work from this agency-client team in recent months. The selection ranges from a funny French fry funeral to badass Colonel Sanders and heartfelt apologies offered to knives, forks and spoons.

Pass me a drumstick! But please, make it KFC.

One perk of gaming is that you can indulge in experiences you might never have in real life. Like making your own fried chicken.

That’s apparently something you can do in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. While you’re less likely to get an oil burn, fried chicken preparation is also a more involved (and adventurous) process in-game: You must gather your chicken, oil and 11 herbs and spices of your choosing from across the virtual world.

To make this process even funner (or just more stressful?), KFC Spain worked with PS21 in Madrid to develop “The Recipe Run,” a speedrun setting for the fastest fried chicken makers of all.

“The Recipe Run” was developed in partnership with SRE (@SpeedrunEspagnol), which gave the contest global scope. Gamers from 17 countries competed for a gold trophy shaped like a chicken thigh, “valued at €11,000.”

In a week, KFC Spain garnered 2,500 participants, boosting web traffic by 58 percent during speedrun days. In contrast with the typical 12 percent average, 44.5 percent of orders were placed via desktop. All participants received codes for a chicken-strip menu, redeemable on the app or website, so that order boost is not really a shocker.

According to the agency, the campaign generated 145 million social media impressions and over 100 hours of organic content.

CREDITS

Agency: PS21
Advertiser: KFC
Campaign: The Recipe Run
Sector: Fast Food
Client: Kerman Romeo, Beatriz Martínez