The Campaign

KFC has become synonymous with Christmas in Japan. While being such a big part of the Japanese Christmas tradition, there are many who have to work during the holiday and cannot spend time with their families and significant others as Christmas is not a national holiday in Japan. For them to also feel the Christmas spirits and relax after working on Christmas, we created a very special gift, Fried Chicken Bath Bombs, a chicken leg shaped bath bomb that, when thrown in water, looks like frying chicken and smells like the 11 secret ingredients of KFC Original Recipe, and gave our Christmas gifts to every Santa on the street including our very own KFC employees.

The Brief

Total Budget: ¥9M JPY ($85K USD) Bath Bombs Production (bath bombs, package, stickers etc.): ¥1.5M JPY ($14K USD) Web Production (campaign page): ¥1.4M JPY ($13K USD) Campaign management office (lottery, packing, shipping costs etc.): ¥1.3M JPY ($12K USD) Paid Media (Twitter AD): ¥3.3M JPY ($30K USD) PR Cost: ¥1.5M JPY ($14K USD)

Creative Execution

We created a very special promotional gift collaborating with a toy company called Village Vanguard that stood apart conventional Christmas presents, a chicken leg shaped bath bomb that, when thrown in water, looks like frying chicken and smells like the 11 secret ingredients of KFC Original Recipe, to be given out as a surprise gift to those Santas working on the street and busy KFC employees to relax. On 12/24 and 12/25, we gave the surprise gifts to the Santas working on the street in Tokyo area as well as the KFC employees working in the shops. During the 3 days, 12/25 – 12/27, we solicited stories of “how terribly busy you were working on Christmas” from the users on Twitter and picked 100 people who tweeted their stories and sent them the Fried Chicken Bath Bombs.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

Increased the buzz during the Christmas holidays - PR exposure: Domestic 300 media, overseas 509 media - PR Advertising Value Equivalency: approximately $2M USD - 436,921 of retweets on Twitter *The sales during the Christmas period, the 3 days (December 23rd till 25th in 2017), reached 6 billion yen ($55 million USD), the record-high sale. *We made many Santas who worked on Christmas holidays refreshed. - Total number of the entries for the bath bombs: 256,326 entries

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

Over the four decades, KFC has become synonymous with Christmas in Japan. We promote the campaign utilizing being such a big part of the Japanese Christmas tradition for those who have to work during the holiday and cannot spend time with their families and significant others as Christmas is not a national holiday in Japan. For them to also feel the Christmas spirits and relax after working on Christmas, we created a very special gift, Fried Chicken Bath Bombs, and gave our Christmas gifts to every Santa on the street including our very own KFC employees.

In order to run the PR promotion, we had several researches; more than 40% of people work on Christmas holidays. When people wear out from work, taking a bath accounts for more than 50% of a thing they want to do to relax and recover from the fatigue. We targeted those who work on Christmas combining with the item that can provide the relaxation to create the promotion, guerilla and social campaigns to directly deliver the bath bombs, which created a lot of buzz and lead to the entry to win the bath bombs on socials that were our target media.