Three years in, KFC’s “Believe in Chicken” campaign is getting its own game show. This latest instalment brings a clever twist to a campaign that was compelling enough to inspire nearly 10 million responses to its March ad, of whom 50,000 applied to put their love of chicken to the test for all the world to see.
Don’t Crack is a 30-minute game show episode airing on YouTube, created by Mother for KFC as possibly the final instalment of the campaign that began in 2024. The 30 contestants range in age from 22 to 65 and include a self-proclaimed witch, a police sergeant, a martial arts trainer, a London tube driver and an NHS GP.
A single £50,000 winner emerged victorious after four rounds of trials. First they were blindfolded and asked to navigate traps in search of golden eggs, then asked to perform competitive “acts of devotion”, followed by a challenge that punished any glance away from the golden egg, before two finalists raced to shed a single tear of joy. Julie Hewitt, adjudicator on Traitors, made sure all was above board.
Monica Silic, CMO at KFC UK&I, said: “We haven’t rented someone else’s audience for this. We’ve put our chicken-obsessive fans on screen, and we’ve given it over 30 minutes rather than ninety seconds because long-form is what it takes before you genuinely care who wins.”
Tomas Coleman and Derek Man Lui, ECDs at Mother, said: “For three years, we’ve been building the absurd universe of ‘Believe in Chicken’, establishing its own rituals and mythology. Don’t Crack felt like the natural next step, giving our Believers the opportunity to showcase this obsession in a real, high-stakes gameshow. It’s a quintessentially KFC way to celebrate this fandom and what it stands for, which is, as always, chicken.”
Director Pablo Rochat said “Working with Mother and KFC was incredible. Their strong vision, combined with real KFC superfans, as well game show production experts, gave us the chance to test crazy ideas and push a gameshow about chicken as far as we could. It’s amazing what we were able to accomplish.”
It’s not the first online game show from an advertiser. Back in 2012, JetBlue did a live show, broadcast daily for one week from a TV studio with a full set and guests appearing via Skype.
But there’s a satisfying logic to the KFC version and the way it comes as part of a campaign that feels now like it’s been building up to this from the start.
MAA creative scale: 8
