The QSR category is one of the most fiercely competitive and challenging in Spain with brands such as Burger King and McDonald’s dominating the advertising spend rankings.

Plus it is also a category where communication is driven by deals and promotions, and this has led to an environment in which brands tend to be undifferentiated and the consumer is extremely unfaithful.

Furthermore, when people in Spain think of “fast food”, they think of pizzas or hamburgers but not fried chicken. Hence one of KFC’s key strategies is to introduce fried chicken into Spanish culture.

With the release of La Infame, a limited edition product, we had to deliver a low-budget launch that would grab the attention of all potential consumers.

La Infame is a hamburger that comes with cheese, BBQ sauce, bacon and, instead of buns, two chicken fillets. In other countries, they call it a double down, but in Spain we decided to change the name to one that was worthy of the product, and so we called it “La Infame”. This was the first idea.

Then, we discovered something: it was a product that was as ugly and grotesque as it was irresistible. People were going mad to try it on social media. So we decided to run an activation aimed at the only people who, come what may, had to resist trying it: the competition’s employees.

It was a very simple activation; if they wanted a free Infame, they just had to come along in their uniforms to our restaurants’ back doors. This way they could enjoy the burger without being seen.

KFC and fried chicken are not popular enough in Spain. People prefer competing products such as BK, McDonalds, Telepizza, Domino’s, etc. This was something we could not ignore when trying to make our new product popular. We knew we couldn’t fight them. So instead of going up against our competitors, we decided to show the irresistibility of our new product by offering to treat our competitors’ employees.

To do this, we implemented a campaign aimed solely at them with a range of touchpoints.

As a centrepiece we made a video starring real competitors’ employees. In it we tested their loyalty to the brands they worked for and invited them to try the product without being seen at the back door of our restaurants.

To go along with this centrepiece, we did everything we could to make sure that every competitor’s employee would hear about it:

We stuck posters opposite their workplaces.

We draped hangers on their delivery scooters.

We handed out flyers at the entrance to their restaurants.

We set up a 900 hotline to check whether or not they were employees of the competition with a fun questionnaire.

We even sneaked into their kitchens by hiding messages in delivery app order notes.

We ended with an event where if you came along wearing a competitor’s uniform, we gave you a free Infame.

+180.000 Infames sold

1.4 infames sold / minute

+24% sales uplift

We were able to recruit new consumers with +32% users making their first KFC order online

2 million views of the video in 2 days.

99% positive sentiment.

54k calls to the freephone number with a completion rate of 99.6%.

3.5 million interactions.

31 million organic impressions.

Over 1200 competitors employees tried free La Infame, given out in 11 cities.

La Infame became the bestselling limited edition product in the history of the brand in Spain