| Title | KFC CHRISTMAS POCKET STORE |
| Brand | YUM CHINA |
| Product / Service | KFC |
| Category | E03. Innovative Use of Social or Community |
| Entrant | ISOBAR CHINA Shanghai, CHINA |
| Idea Creation | ISOBAR CHINA Shanghai, CHINA |
| Media Placement | WECHAT ShenZhen, CHINA |
| Name | Company | Position |
|---|---|---|
| Steven Li | Yum China | Chief Marketing Officer |
| Maggie Chen | Yum China | Senior Marketing Director |
| Lynn Zhang | Yum China | Marketing Director |
| Bin Guan | Yum China | Associate Marketing Director |
| Even Zhu | Yum China | Marketing Manager |
| Janica Xu | Yum China | Associate Marketing Product Director |
| Sherry Han | Yum China | Associate Marketing Product Manager |
| Annabel Gong | Yum China | Associate Director |
| Caparina Wu | Yum China | Assistant Marketing Manager |
| Gabrielle Fang | Yum China | Marketing Manager |
KFC has over 5,800 stores across China. This sounds like a lot. But with a population of 1.39 billion, China only has one KFC store for every 240,000 Chinese people. With China’s sky-high rental costs, how was KFC able to open more stores to sell to more Chinese consumers? During Christmas festive season, KFC opened annual Christmas Fried Chicken Shop integrated online and offline to establish KFC’s Christmas Season campaign as a brand asset which enables every consumer of KFC to be the content creator for the brand, eventually drives sales.
At Christmas, KFC introduced its Christmas Fried Chicken Shop. Not only offering offline physical theme stores, KFC also launched online virtual ‘KFC Pocket Stores’ using China’s No.1 social platform, WeChat. All across China, anyone with a phone could open a KFC Pocket Store.
KFC’s target consumers are aged between 20 to 27 years old. They are digital natives and active on social media. KFC leveraged the WeChat platform to effectively engage with these young people and raise awareness for the ‘KFC Christmas Fried Chicken Shop’ campaign.
Along with two TVCs aired on TVs, at metro stations and on social media, KFC Pocket Stores were also launched on WeChat, China’s No.1 social platform. By scanning the QR code on TVC or Christmas Fried Chicken Shop ads, or clicking on WeChat ads, users were directed to Pocket Store mini program - the WeChat commerce enterprise platforms where people were able to get the experience to open, design, and share their own Pocket Stores. 1. WeChat mini-program users could get an interactive experience of ‘running’ a KFC pocket store, including store ‘decoration’, online ordering and promotion, and even allowing friends to order meals from each other’s pocket stores. 2. The consumers could redeem their Pocket Store orders in real KFC stores; meanwhile they could have a fast-track pick-up by using self-ordering service on KFC Super APP. 3. Users naturally began to share their orders and experiences on social media.
Apart from offline theme stores, KFC Pocket Stores became KFC’s most successful mobile commerce program ever. It turned brand customers into brand co-owners, and transformed brand commerce into ‘Me-Commerce’. POCKET STORES ‘OPENED’ ON DAY ONE: 560,000 PEAK DAILY ACTIVE USERS IN 3 MONTHS: 2.6 million+ NO.1 POCKET STORE SALES IN 3 MONTHS: USD 1.04 million KFC POCKET STORE TOTAL SALES IN 3 MONTHS: 900% over sales target With 2 million pocket stores opened in just a few months, KFC has increased their number of ‘stores’ (virtual stores + offline stores) in China by 345 times! *Data source: Yum China.