Kiwis love their sport, and while their test cricket team might not be much to write home about, the All Blacks remain great, and Auckland FC has had a season to remember in the A-League.
But while they love sport, Kiwis hate having to use public transport to get to the games. In fact, a significant number of our friends over the ditch say they would prefer to see their team lose rather than take a bus or train.
Special PR and its client, KFC, spotted this tension. The agency thought it was the perfect opportunity to change perceptions and help KFC show up unforgettably, leveraging its decade-long sponsorship of Super Rugby and creating the ‘Gravy Train’. The campaign was a roaring success, notching significant brand and business results for KFC and scooping the Best Out of Home Campaign Award at last year’s B&T Awards.
Entries for the 2025 B&T Awards close on 29 August.
But how did Special and KFC meld these three quite disparate ideas – fried chicken, trains and footy – together in a way that created incredible results? We spoke to Special PR’s MD Kelly Grindle, to find out.
“KFC has sponsored Super Rugby for ten years, and we have a firm belief that a sponsor should always do something to ‘help’ the sponsorship – how is brand involvement making the experience better for fans? We essentially started by brainstorming all of the pain points or frustrations rugby fans feel when they’re watching the game, and public transport was a common theme. From that jumping off point, it was fairly easy: if KFC were going to make public transport better, how would we show up and what would it look like?” Grindle told B&T.
It was decided that KFC would take over a train running from Britomart to Eden Park—home of the All Blacks and Auckland Blues. Ticket-holding fans for the Blues vs Force game travelling to Eden Park ahead of the match on 5 April last year were given one helluva ride. Carlos Spencer greeted them as the inaugural ‘Train Conclucktor’ along with a group of dedicated KFC ambassadors roaming the carriages and serving up limited edition KFC snack boxes.
Entries for the 2025 B&T Awards close on 29 August.
The onboard experience was unforgettable for fans, but it wasn’t the main thrust of the campaign, as Grindle explained.
“We managed to create a moving billboard in a way that had never been done before. The heart of this campaign was actually an earned approach, which is always nerve-wracking when it comes to delivering a return-on-investment. By creating such a disruptive visual wrapper for the train, it became a focal point of the campaign and turned heads as it criss-crossed Auckland’s rail network. It helped make our PR much more real and tangible,” he said.
Naturally, big brand activations giving away free food tend to do well for earned coverage. This campaign was no different, racking up more than 350 pieces of global earned PR coverage. It also delivered KFC a huge spike in its ‘brand buzz’ metrics, and it had almost universal positive sentiment on social.
Entries for the 2025 B&T Awards close on 29 August.
“While this was certainly a campaign around ‘fame-generation’ it did have a short-term sales impact over our activation weekend, and it continued to contribute to ongoing brand objectives that address perception challenges such as ‘modernity’,” said Grindle.
In fact, it delivered a 9 per cent increase in delivery transactions, with a remarkable 21.6 per cent jump through its app and website.
That success clearly made waves at KFC, too, as it went on to launch an airline – with Special PR’s expert help – to get it even more firmly embedded into the minds of Super Rugby fans.
“The shape and structure of the campaign worked well, so we were challenged to elevate it. This year, for our Super Rugby sponsorship, we have been running ‘Zing Air’, which is a KFC airline that allows Super Rugby fans to travel and support their team when they’re playing away from home. The results have been equally as impressive, but we’re quickly running out of transportation options…” added Grindle.
It should be clear that Special PR created an incredible OOH campaign for KFC. But why did it enter the work into the B&T Awards? Were all those incredible metrics not enough?
“The B&T Awards is one of the best outlets for creativity in the region, the winners always seem fresh and different. And besides, it’s always good to highlight that New Zealand work can go toe-to-toe with the Australians…” said Grindle.
