Americana Group Win Major Regional and Global Marketing Awards for 2014

Dubai, UAE, April 17, 2014: KFC Arabia marketing campaigns have been recognised with major regional and global marketing awards. In the first quarter of 2014, the marketing team's efforts of the renowned chicken brand, which forms part of the well-established Americana Group, have been recognised with an award at the 2014 Internationalist Awards for Innovation in Media and two other wins at the regional 2014 Dubai Lynx Award. 

“Once again, KFC Arabia has had the quality, effectiveness and reach of its marketing campaigns endorsed on the regional and global stage.” said Borhan El Kilany, Executive Vice President Marketing & Business Development, Americana Group. “These acknowledgments are the result of our strategy of continuous and sustained efforts to commit to campaigns that meet world-wide standards and to establish engaging ideas and concepts that attract both our core consumers and new audiences, particularly the youth segment,” he added.

KFC Arabia's triumph at the 2014 Internationalist Awards marks its second consecutive win at this prominent marketing platform for the global advertising industry. Established almost a decade ago, the forum honours the best ideas and executions in the field of digital and media innovation across the world. KFC Arabia was one of two brands in the Middle East region to win in this category, competing against famous brands from more than 50 countries. The KFC MENA marketing team picked up their accolade at a spectacular Internationalist Awards ceremony, which took place in Times Square, New York in March. 

The KFC MENA marketing team's impactful campaigns have also recorded impressive results across the Middle East and Gulf, with the brand receiving two recognitions at 2014 Dubai Lynx Awards - the region's most prestigious advertising award. The annual Lynx Awards event is part of the Lions Festivals stable, which includes Cannes Lions, Spikes Asia, Eurobest and the Asia Effectiveness Awards. This regional success closely followed the organisation's Effie Award win from the last quarter of 2013, with the awards ceremony taking place in Dubai in November last year.

“It is the incredible level of innovation and creative thinking of the marketing team at KFC MENA that has resulted in us continuing to achieve such success at prestigious awards ceremonies throughout the first quarter of 2014,” said Adel Mounib, Chief Marketing Officer, Restaurants Division, Americana Group. “And it is not over yet. Our Cristiano Ronaldo campaign has reached the final nominations for a number of forthcoming regional and international forums, so we are looking forward to a spectacular year with many marketing awards for KFC Arabia, Americana Group,” he added. 

The KFC MENA marketing campaigns that caught the judges' eyes at the awards included the KFC MENA marketing team execution of special programs in popular TV shows in the region, such as The Voice, Arabs' Got Talent and Arab Idol. This is in addition to launching the ‘SuperFan' experience platform, which allowed loyal KFC customers to be a part of the televised contests. By answering questions posed on the KFC Arabia's Facebook page and showing their dedication to the brand and the shows, customers were able to win a once-in-a-lifetime experience at a live recording of an episode, which included the chance to mingle backstage with the contestants and stars.  

“The appointment of world-famous superstar soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo as an ambassador KFC brand was another very successful initiative from the KFC MENA marketing team,” said Hesham Tahssin, Regional Marketing Director, KFC MENA, Americana Group. “The endorsement followed a previous successful initiative of sponsoring Barcelona FC's player, Lionel Messi in 2010. The Ronaldo campaign leveraged the sporting rivalry between two sets of passionate football fans who shared their comments online, in addition to utilising special Ronaldo-themed brand activations and the development of an augmented reality (AR) app for images. The campaign recorded significant results, with social media conversation increasing by 137 per cent and brand sentiment up by 20 per cent. The AR app also generated more than 65,000 photo shares over a 45-day period,” he added.

Social media is an area in marketing where KFC MENA has really shone and this has been acknowledged with the awards that the brand has received both regionally and internationally. From an initial base of 11,000 Facebook fans when KFC Arabia first started using the platform in 2009, a progressive strategy of engagement and interaction was employed, which has resulted in the most recent count, revealing more than 2.5 million fans on the KFC Arabia Facebook page and more than 180,000 followers on twitter.