February 14, 2023

Recruiting Employees Through TikTok Ads for KFC

Introduction

KFC announced its franchise expansion to Finland in early 2021 with hopes to launch at least four new restaurants by the end of the year 2021. KFC partnered with Shook Digital to internalize itself into the world of TikTok and to reach untouched audiences through paid TikTok ads for its restaurant employee recruitment. The 2-week recruitment campaign was a success. KFC had to take off the job posters due to the pre-eminent amount of applications, most of which came from TikTok. To our knowledge, this was the first recruitment in-feed TikTok ads campaign made in the Finnish market.

30%+

visitors to KFC careers page came from TikTok

1.42M

impressions

44%

of males within 18-24 years watched half of the ad

Objective

KFC Finland, a self-evident global restaurant brand operated by Apollo Group in Finland, decided to partner with Shook Digital to leverage TikTok ads in their recruitment processes. KFC Finland planned to open a couple of new restaurants in Helsinki and Turku and needed a boost to its recruitment process due to insignificant numbers of applicants prior to the campaign. We were faced with a tight schedule due to the approaching deadline of restaurant openings in Finland, so immediate actions were required.

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Solution

KFC wanted to approach and engage with young millennials and Gen Z users on TikTok. A plan was made utilizing the Auction In-Feed ads. The ad was targeted towards two different age groups without any additional targeting criteria: 18-24-year olds & 25-34-year olds. Shook Digital helped KFC to reach an untouched audience due to TikTok’s vast unique reach of 45% compared to Instagram and Facebook.

We decided to approach this TikTok campaign with a very TikTok native approach. We produced a short, humorous film with two of KFC’s employees as actors to emphasize the relaxed and juvenile working environment of KFC. With this single creative, we established a storyline that we will work on to continue in the future with KFC’s upcoming TikTok campaigns.

The single advertisement was engaging especially within the 18-24 age group, which led the users to the KFC’s dedicated job site to learn more about the job opportunities and to apply.

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“The Shook team received the assignment at very short notice but were immediately ready to respond to the situation. Within a few days, the manuscript, location and description of the plan were confirmed and then we were ready to implement it. The end result was fun and functional as the results show”

Henri Paronen - Marketing & PR Manager at KFC Finland

Results

Within two weeks of the first agreement, we were ready to launch the campaign.

Within the next two weeks from the TikTok campaign start, KFC had to halt its whole job application offering in Finland. Over one-third of KFC’s total career-page visitors came through TikTok, and 40% of the applicants who submitted their resumes got recruited.

In numbers, we accumulated 1.42 million impressions with 18,300 clicks. The best engagement came from males within 18-24 years of age with 44% watching half of the ad, and 10.6% watching the whole ad. The numeric results suggest that TikTok advertising is highly effective in terms of costs and traffic generated. CPC and CPM throughout the campaign were 0.08€ and 1.05€ respectively.

Furthermore, this campaign did not only resolve KFC’s recruitment but also amplified KFC’s positive employer image and brand recognition.

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Brand:

Kentucky Fried Chicken

Company:

Apollo Group / KFC

Industry:

Food & Beverage

Target market(s):

FInland