media update’s Adam Wakefield spoke to KFC corporate affairs director and 2017 Loeries® judge Thabisa Mkhawanazi and KFC chief marketing officer Mike Middleton about their brand’s success and how it is the result of real partnership with Ogilvy Johannesburg.

Overall, KFC and Ogilvy’s entrants into the 2017 Loeries® yielded 11 different awards, including:

  • Campaign Bronze, Silver, and Gold awards;
  • Bronze, Silver, and Gold awards; 
  • Campaign Craft Gold; and
  • A Grand Prix. 
The icing on the cake was the Grand Prix, awarded for the Sad Man Meal entry in the Radio Communication: Radio Station Commercials category.

“We are stoked. It feels good,” says Mkhwanazi about KFC’s success in Durban.

“It feels incredible sitting in a leadership position and it’s incredible for our team. For me, this is when they get paid their dues. They have that courage now to push a little further and that’s an exciting place to go.”

Beyond KFC winning, what was significant for Mkhwanazi was that they claimed awards across different categories and mediums, which five years ago would not have been expected.
Middleton says KFC firmly believes in the principle that “great creativity delivers business results”, so winning the awards, including the Grand Prix, was “fantastic for my team”.

“It means we are delivering work that is connecting to the consumer and making sure our brand is relevant in South Africa.”

The marriage of brand and agency

Both Mkhwanazi and Middleton are adamant that at the root of KFC’s success at the Loeries® is the excellent relationship they have with Ogilvy Johannesburg.

“It is around creating an environment of stability and certainty. That is a key element in the agency-client relationship or in ‘the partnership’, as we call it,” Mkhwanazi explains.

An environment where the agency is concerned about their position is not conducive to creative work or liberating creativity.

Within the “partnership”, which according to Mkhwanazi others do find an odd choice of word, KFC and Ogilvy have created partnership principles that exist between them. A similar structure also exists with Mindshare, who also work with KFC.

“We know what we need to do, but we go around a table and say ‘This is how we want to work. These are the big things we are going to focus on’. That’s been a key part in unlocking the partnership and getting creative out of the team.”

There is a common language KFC and Ogilvy Johannesburg use, they know the work hours, they get on stage together, and they share their defeats.

“My favourite is the fun stuff. I’m a big, big believer in creativity. I think you have to liberate creativity and that’s got to live in how you work,” Mkhwanazi says.

It’s about trust and mutual respect

Middleton, who personally received the Marketing Leadership and Innovation Award at the 2017 Loeries®, says the success enjoyed by KFC and Ogilvy Johannesburg is rooted in trust, mutual respect, and not telling each other how to do their jobs.

“It’s understanding that each part has a clear role to play within the creative process. The client owns strategy, the client is making sure the message is delivered in the most clear and consistent way, and agencies need to push creativity to make sure that it is engaging and it has got a hook that is going to ensure that consumers connect with it going forward,” Middleton says.

“If you get those two to come together, you are going to have great work. That’s why we work with Ogilvy. We have a fantastic relationship. We know each other well. We play together, we work hard together, we trust each other, we support each other, and we produce amazing work together.”

For more information, visit www.loeries.com.

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The Loeries® are not only awarded to English work, with non-English work going from strength to strength. Read more in our article, Loeries® 2017: Non-English work coming into its own.