KFC has challenged gamers to recreate its secret fried chicken recipe in the new video game ‘The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’ after players discovered that the new game features the possibility of cooking fried chicken for the first time.
KFC launched the challenge and got that thousands of gamers from 17 different countries to compete in ‘The Recipe Run’, the first brand-created speedrun to see who could cook their own KFC-style chicken recipe the fastest in Zelda TOTK.
In order to complete in ‘The Recipe Run’, users had to elaborate its own version of KFC’s secret recipe in the video game by gathering chicken, oil and 11 herbs and spices of their choice from all those scattered throughout the virtual world of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom.
In addition, KFC partnered with SRE (@SpeedrunEspanol) to make ‘The Recipe Run’ a global competition, in which amateur gamers from 17 countries around the world competed to make the recipe in record time and win a gold trophy in the form of a chicken thigh valued at €11,000.
In parallel, KFC also challenged users to share on Twitter the video clip recreating their secret fried chicken recipe in the video game.
Within a few hours, the hashtag #TheRecipeRun was trending, representing 27% of the total conversation in the campaign period.
In total, more than 145 million impressions in social media and more than 100 hours of organic content globally have been generated.
All users that achieved the challenge received codes redeemable for a five-chicken strip menu on the KFC Spain app and website.
In a single week, KFC Spain had more than 2,500 participants in the action.