Skip to main content
Kentucky Town Bloemfontein
Case Studies / Influencer Marketing
Social & Digital, Content Strategy, Influencer Management
KFC Kentucky Town Bloemfontein ran from 20 to 30 March 2025, making Bloemfontein the smallest city yet to host KFC South Africa’s pop-up. We built demand with an influencer campaign of 46 creators that delivered 37 million reach and 89 million impressions across 186 pieces of content, and helped bring more than 45,000 visitors to the pop-up in 11 days. It is part of our influencer marketing work.
Client
KFC
Project
Kentucky Town Bloemfontein
The Brief
Kentucky Town is a limited-edition KFC South Africa pop-up that turns a restaurant into an immersive, youth-focused brand space for 11 days, a nod to the 11 herbs and spices. It launched in 2021 for KFC’s 50th birthday, and Bloemfontein was the fifth city to host it and the smallest so far, with a smaller audience and lower average incomes.
Our brief was to start enough conversation to draw both local and national fans to the pop-up. That meant creating culturally relevant, buzzworthy content, driving foot traffic, promoting the limited-edition menu, KFC sauces and collab merchandise, and positioning KFC as youthful and in tune with culture. The target market was youth, LSM 5 to 10.
Results
Across 46 creators and 186 pieces of content, the campaign delivered 89 million impressions, 37 million reach and more than 421,000 engagements. At the pop-up itself, fans shared 3,235 Colonel’s Cam images, made 2,500 AI Self(ie) Buckets, customised 436 pairs of Converse sneakers, played 590 VR games and shared 543 ASMR videos.
By combining hyper-local insight with national creator amplification, we turned online demand for Kentucky Town into a real-world destination that captured a whole city’s imagination.
Idea
Bloemfontein needed national noise and local pride, so we ran two creator tracks. National creators from a range of niches and demographics, including Khosi Twala, Chad Jones, Janey and Waney, Bongani (Mr How Much) and Lebo Molax, took the trip to Bloemfontein and reached different audiences. Local creators, found by listening across community groups, local publications and mentions of Bloemfontein, brought local influence. We also localised the offer for the City of Roses, with menu items nodding to the Cheetahs rugby team and merchandise made with local clothing brand Boerboel Wear.
Teaser phase: Locals had been asking on X when Kentucky Town would come to their city, so we restarted that conversation. Five days before the announcement, a well-known local X user tweeted at KFC daily to build momentum. Once it was announced, lead creator Mateki2Shoes set off on a “quest for taste”, amplified on X alongside local Bloemfontein creators, and we trended. National creators then followed with travel-vlog style content on their journey to Bloemfontein.
Experiential phase: When the doors opened, Mateki and the national and local creators showed fans what was inside: the limited-edition menu, KFC sauces, collab gear, and shareable moments like the Colonel’s Cam, Boba Pong, sneaker customisation with Converse, VR play, personalised AI Self(ie) Buckets and an ASMR booth.
Close: Mateki declared himself Mayor of Kentucky Town and renamed Bloemfontein #BloemfonTaste, a playful moment that kept the conversation going to the end.
