Quick-service restaurant giant KFC ran a 12-day mobile advertising campaign with eBuddy that achieved more than 180,000 impressions.

To create awareness for the iTwist, KFC filled every position available on eBuddy Mobile and the eBuddy iPhone application. Consumers in the Netherlands that clicked on the banner got a buy-one-iTwist-get-one-free coupon. In addition to the 180,000-plus impressions generated via eBuddy, 1,150 consumers clicked through to get the mobile coupon.

?The KFC campaign focused on a new product, the iTwist,? said Rogier van den Heuvel, vice president of worldwide sales at eBuddy, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. ?They launched the iTwist as a new fancy bite, and therefore wanted to use a new and innovative way to promote it.

?The mobile platform helped them to interact with their target audience by providing them with coupons that offered a reduction on the purchase of the new iTwist at the nearest KFC,? he said.

Web and mobile instant messaging aggregator service eBuddy processes more than 15 billion messages per month and enables more than 30 million unique monthly visitors to chat in one interface across all major IM networks, including AIM, Facebook Chat, Google Talk, Hyves, ICQ, MySpace, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo.

Who are you calling chicken?
The KFC mobile ad campaign ran on eBuddy?s J2ME and iPhone platforms January 12-24.

When mobile users clicked on the KFC banner ad on their mobile phone, they received a coupon that let them get one iTwist for free by presenting and showing the unique coupon at any KFC restaurant. 

While the click-through rate of KFC?s mobile campaign was less than one percent, the large number of impressions helped to fulfill the campaign goal of creating awareness for the new iTwist.

In addition, the mobile coupons were effective in driving traffic into KFC locations in the Netherlands.

KFC booked follow-up campaigns on the same platforms, which shows that the campaign was a success, according to eBuddy.

Here is a screengrab of KFC's iTwist banner ad within eBuddy's iPhone application:

?The target demographics included everyone with a mobile phone in the Netherlands,? Mr. van den Heuvel said.

?EBuddy is one of the largest mobile platforms in the Netherlands, so it provided one of the easiest ways to reach their goal which was to reach as many people as they possibly could,? he said.