The KFC Conundrum

KFC wants to create a new ambassador program for Generation Z audience members with their new spicy chicken and lemonade drink. Outline the steps you will want to take in order to execute this program on the right foot. Discuss at least one example of a good ambassador program to follow and recommend to KFC.

In building a new ambassador program for Gen Z, I would initiate the campaign with a video of KFC persona, Colonel Sanders, challenging customers to try the new spicy chicken, parodying the popular YouTube Hot Ones hot sauce challenge.  The perfect relief for the spicy chicken is, of course, lemonade!  The launch video would ask KFC followers to post their responses to the question, “How spicy is your spicy chicken? 

The desired result from the launch video and the “How spicy” question, would be to spark a fan driven engagement similar to the McDonald’s, 2023 Grimace Shake trend.   Along with generating product awareness, this campaign would also help to vet potential ambassadors and function as a test to “determine who gets into the group and who doesn’t”. Freberg, K. (2025) Social media for strategic communication, vol 3.  KFC could then reach out to users whose content generated the most attention and offer them incentives and opportunities to create and share content promoting KFC. 

Once established the core group of ambassadors would get early notification of upcoming promotions and opportunities to sample new products in videos shared to their social media channels and KFC’s sites.  A good ambassador program I would recommend to KFC would be the Bumble example in Freberg’s book.  It seems to target a similar aged audience and has a light positive approach.