KFC Africa CRM Rewards Solution
By Yonder Media - Centurion
For KFC Brand KFC
Highly Commended in category Progressive
Use of Mobile
Project Description
In 2018, Yonder Media had successfully conceptualised, developed and implemented KFC South Africa’s mobile-based rewards and gamification platform nationwide, with USSD at the heart of the solution, with massive success. The platform had enabled an unprecedented level of data-gathering and consumer information insight on a scale never before possible.
KFC in neighbouring countries - Lesotho and Botswana - wanted to run a similar program, but were frustrated by the complexities of running USSD systems in those countries, and the cost to consumers to interact via USSD. Yonder Media rose to the challenge by creating a WhatsApp instance of the rewards entry mechanism instead of USSD
For KFC, the desire was to provide competition and reward entry channels for otherwise wholly untapped markets, and in doing so, understanding their consumer purchase behaviour for the first time possible. For Yonder, running WhatsApp in these countries was also to serve as an incubator to test consumer acceptance of the channel, before considering it as the logical successor to USSD, and to roll it out for KFC South Africa nationwide.
In order to acclimatise the consumers of this nascent market to purchase-based competitions, the prizes were kept straightforward: physical prizes of caps, shirts, sunglasses and cellphones were awarded each week (with consumers using a unique prize code to claim in-store), with a grand prize of a VW Polo drawn at campaign end. Consumers needed only to send the unique code found at the bottom of till slips to the provided WhatsApp number to enter, with some profiling and opt-in questions being asked as part of the user journey.
As KFC enjoys a universal appeal that transcends age and gender, no specific audience was done, other than they had to have bought KFC meals valued over 65 pula / loti.
Given the entry mechanic was on WhatsApp - which necessitates having at least an Android device - it was (correctly) predicted that the majority of entrants would be younger, as their familiarity of WhatsApp would encourage more engagement from that segment. In-campaign statistics showed that, over time, the rise in entries from older age groups gradually increased, as the concept became more familiar to them.
The campaign was not accompanied by any digital or Above The Line media. Rather, the promotion was advertised through heavy use of in-store collateral, with the messaging being clear and simple so as not to introduce any potential confusion. Consumers where merely asked to buy a KFC meal of over 65pula/loti and to send the unique code at the bottom of the slip via the WhatsApp number provided. Additional actions were communicated within the WhatsApp bot itself.
Within the WhatsApp bot, the communication strategy was straightforward: it was assumed that many entrants would (incorrectly) believe that they were communicating to a human operator - rather than an automated bot - and thus, it was decided that, contrary to prevailing schools of thought on the matter, that this bot should not attempt to humanise or anthropomorphise itself, in an effort to dissuade users from attempting to converse beyond the limitations of the bot’s capabilities.
Despite this, users continued to surprise us by sending in videos, voice notes and images, and the in-app messaging was refined nearly daily to accommodate these and other unexpected methods of engagement.
Although the technology was directly inherited from and based on the South Africa’s nationwide rewards platform, it was evident that the results from South Africa would not necessarily be translatable and applicable to Botswana and Lesotho. Added to this, there did not appear to be any other automated WhatsApp campaigns that had run in these countries by which to compare by. Because of this, we understood that we were essentially pioneering bot-based consumer messaging in these markets, and the spirit of the campaign was that of learning, adjusting and experimenting, so as to legitimise WhatsApp as a pan-African solution that would bring sophisticated consumer insight mechanics to the rest of the continent
KFC in neighbouring countries - Lesotho and Botswana - wanted to run a similar program, but were frustrated by the complexities of running USSD systems in those countries, and the cost to consumers to interact via USSD. Yonder Media rose to the challenge by creating a WhatsApp instance of the rewards entry mechanism instead of USSD
For KFC, the desire was to provide competition and reward entry channels for otherwise wholly untapped markets, and in doing so, understanding their consumer purchase behaviour for the first time possible. For Yonder, running WhatsApp in these countries was also to serve as an incubator to test consumer acceptance of the channel, before considering it as the logical successor to USSD, and to roll it out for KFC South Africa nationwide.
In order to acclimatise the consumers of this nascent market to purchase-based competitions, the prizes were kept straightforward: physical prizes of caps, shirts, sunglasses and cellphones were awarded each week (with consumers using a unique prize code to claim in-store), with a grand prize of a VW Polo drawn at campaign end. Consumers needed only to send the unique code found at the bottom of till slips to the provided WhatsApp number to enter, with some profiling and opt-in questions being asked as part of the user journey.
As KFC enjoys a universal appeal that transcends age and gender, no specific audience was done, other than they had to have bought KFC meals valued over 65 pula / loti.
Given the entry mechanic was on WhatsApp - which necessitates having at least an Android device - it was (correctly) predicted that the majority of entrants would be younger, as their familiarity of WhatsApp would encourage more engagement from that segment. In-campaign statistics showed that, over time, the rise in entries from older age groups gradually increased, as the concept became more familiar to them.
The campaign was not accompanied by any digital or Above The Line media. Rather, the promotion was advertised through heavy use of in-store collateral, with the messaging being clear and simple so as not to introduce any potential confusion. Consumers where merely asked to buy a KFC meal of over 65pula/loti and to send the unique code at the bottom of the slip via the WhatsApp number provided. Additional actions were communicated within the WhatsApp bot itself.
Within the WhatsApp bot, the communication strategy was straightforward: it was assumed that many entrants would (incorrectly) believe that they were communicating to a human operator - rather than an automated bot - and thus, it was decided that, contrary to prevailing schools of thought on the matter, that this bot should not attempt to humanise or anthropomorphise itself, in an effort to dissuade users from attempting to converse beyond the limitations of the bot’s capabilities.
Despite this, users continued to surprise us by sending in videos, voice notes and images, and the in-app messaging was refined nearly daily to accommodate these and other unexpected methods of engagement.
Although the technology was directly inherited from and based on the South Africa’s nationwide rewards platform, it was evident that the results from South Africa would not necessarily be translatable and applicable to Botswana and Lesotho. Added to this, there did not appear to be any other automated WhatsApp campaigns that had run in these countries by which to compare by. Because of this, we understood that we were essentially pioneering bot-based consumer messaging in these markets, and the spirit of the campaign was that of learning, adjusting and experimenting, so as to legitimise WhatsApp as a pan-African solution that would bring sophisticated consumer insight mechanics to the rest of the continent
Agency Solution
Based on the success story in SA we wanted to keep the overall execution in other African countries similar to that of SA but the immediate challenge of USSD not being as reliable and cost effective as in South Africa became evident.
Whilst baseline mobile technologies (USSD, SMS) exist in Botswana and Lesotho, the complexity of enabling these channels is a significant barrier, and these “bearers” have been known to experience partial failure in these countries. The high cost of entry of USSD was also identified as being a serious barrier to the average KFC consumer. Additional limitations of USSD included session length restrictions, and the amount of text displayable on a single screen, as well as complete lack of multimedia capabilities.
An alternative engagement channel was needed and as a preferred instant messaging platform internationally, and specifically in Africa, it made sense to run the Africa solution as a fully-automated bot on WhatsApp.
Given the high degree of entry-level Android penetration (even in emerging markets), WhatsApp as the de-facto communication platform of choice in Africa - we were confident that the adoption of Whatsapp was already more than significant enough in the se markets within consumer segments with sufficient disposable income to engage in the campaign/s.
Our WhatsApp solution addressed all the challenges mentioned above, transcending mobile network and aggrgator issues, whilst being near-free to use, meaning that not only could consumers enter more readily, but more verbose communication was possible, without the technical limitations of USSD. Thus, the brand engagement was automatically richer, more detailed, and in a familiar format in the African countries where our WhatsApp solution was rolled out
The unique code entered in WhatsApp has the following information embedded in is: the store of purchase, date of purchase, basket size, and product. With this, consumers did not have to enter in needless information, and this critical data could now be stored and reported on with a total level of accuracy.
Additional reward challenges also had to be addressed including a lack of point-of-sale driven vouchering systems, and limited opportunities for airtime and data distribution in the African countries when compared to SA.
To counter these challenges we adjusted our powerful Yomo-WinEngine and RewardsEngine, to provide fair prize distribution in the form of physical prizes such as mobile phones and sunglasses and a grand prize draw for a new car.
Winners were sent special prize codes via WhatsApp which were then presented to store managers to validate. Initially store managers had to validate entries against an email they received, but this mechanism soon also evolved into a custom WhatsApp Bot that allows store managers to verify winners in real-time.
Whilst baseline mobile technologies (USSD, SMS) exist in Botswana and Lesotho, the complexity of enabling these channels is a significant barrier, and these “bearers” have been known to experience partial failure in these countries. The high cost of entry of USSD was also identified as being a serious barrier to the average KFC consumer. Additional limitations of USSD included session length restrictions, and the amount of text displayable on a single screen, as well as complete lack of multimedia capabilities.
An alternative engagement channel was needed and as a preferred instant messaging platform internationally, and specifically in Africa, it made sense to run the Africa solution as a fully-automated bot on WhatsApp.
Given the high degree of entry-level Android penetration (even in emerging markets), WhatsApp as the de-facto communication platform of choice in Africa - we were confident that the adoption of Whatsapp was already more than significant enough in the se markets within consumer segments with sufficient disposable income to engage in the campaign/s.
Our WhatsApp solution addressed all the challenges mentioned above, transcending mobile network and aggrgator issues, whilst being near-free to use, meaning that not only could consumers enter more readily, but more verbose communication was possible, without the technical limitations of USSD. Thus, the brand engagement was automatically richer, more detailed, and in a familiar format in the African countries where our WhatsApp solution was rolled out
The unique code entered in WhatsApp has the following information embedded in is: the store of purchase, date of purchase, basket size, and product. With this, consumers did not have to enter in needless information, and this critical data could now be stored and reported on with a total level of accuracy.
Additional reward challenges also had to be addressed including a lack of point-of-sale driven vouchering systems, and limited opportunities for airtime and data distribution in the African countries when compared to SA.
To counter these challenges we adjusted our powerful Yomo-WinEngine and RewardsEngine, to provide fair prize distribution in the form of physical prizes such as mobile phones and sunglasses and a grand prize draw for a new car.
Winners were sent special prize codes via WhatsApp which were then presented to store managers to validate. Initially store managers had to validate entries against an email they received, but this mechanism soon also evolved into a custom WhatsApp Bot that allows store managers to verify winners in real-time.