KFC Arabia Scoops Awards in Digital Marketing

Renowned brand has its innovative social media campaigns recognised  

Dubai, UAE, May 22, 2014: The innovative marketing campaigns of KFC Arabia, part of renowned food and beverage company Americana Group, have been acknowledged with the presentation of three accolades at the MENA Digital Awards, an inaugural programme that formed a major part of this year’s Digital Media Forum. KFC Arabia scooped three awards at the event, which was established to promote and recognise excellence in digital media marketing across the region.

“The fact that we were able to collect three awards at the first ever MENA Digital Awards programme is both a testament to the hard work of the KFC Arabia marketing team at Americana Group and the innovative social media marketing campaigns that we are bringing to audiences,” said Borhan El Kilany, Executive Vice President Marketing & Business Development, Americana Group. “The KFC Arabia campaigns that caught the judges’ eyes were the ones where we reacted in real time to events and where we stoked conversations on-line. These reactions led to a significantly raised level of brand awareness, as well as sales,” he added.

“KFC Arabia’s social media campaigns are now one of its most influential aspects of its marketing operations,” said Adel Mounib, Chief Marketing Officer, Restaurants Division, Americana Group. “What is particularly impressive is that we have created such success stories from an initial platform of just 11,000 fans on Facebook in 2009. In the short space of three years, we have reached 2.5 million fans across the region,” he added.

“KFC Arabia has made social media core component of its marketing strategy to reach out to and connect with its core demographic of young people in the region,” said Hesham Tahssin, Regional Marketing Director, KFC MENA, Americana Group. "KFC Arabia’s social media platform has been an instrumental tool for us to connect with our audience and we have great plans for more interactive digital media marketing campaigns moving forward, so watch this space for more initiatives that will keep the conversations going," he added.

KFC Arabia collected its trophies for its ‘Kintacky, Kintacky, Kintacky’ campaign, in the category ‘Best Use of Social Media’ as well as another win in ‘Social Brand of the Year.’ A third win was also awarded in the Social Brand of the Year category for its campaign titled: ‘Arch Rivals.’

‘Kintacky, Kintacky, Kintacky’ impressed as it was a reactive event to an unexpected opportunity that arose during the recording of an episode of Arab Idol, which KFC Arabia was sponsoring. One of the show’s judges demanded to have KFC live on air and the marketing team responded immediately by arranging buckets of the famous KFC’s secret recipe chicken to be delivered to the studio. They recorded the results, sending them out on social media, leading to a huge boost in exposure on top of the air time they were receiving as distinctive sponsors.

‘Arch Rivals’ leveraged the sporting rivalry between the fans of the famous footballers, such as Cristiano Ronaldo. Responding to customers’ feedback, KFC Arabia introduced a campaign featuring soccer star Ronaldo, the world’s number one player. This generated a great deal of traffic around the company’s Facebook page. Arch Rivals saw KFC Arabia’s social media conversations increase by an incredible 137 percent, while its overall brand sentiment was recorded as climbing by 20 percent.