New KFC Cricket Australia Campaign Champions ‘Hole In My Bucket’ Ashes Anthem To Rival England’s ‘Barmy Army’

As the first ball in the Ashes is bowled on 24 November, Cricket Australia partner KFC launched a new campaign combining two existing activations ‘HCG (Home Ground Cricket)’ and ‘Bucketheads’.

The work, which opens KFC’s Australian cricket season activation, is led by the release of a new anthem called ‘Hole In My Bucket’: a direct challenge to the well known England fan group ‘The Barmy Army’ (and its popular comic chants) through the formation of a new movement called ‘The HCG Buckethead Army’.

The initiative, developed in harness with agency Ogilvy Sydney, is spearheaded by ‘The HCG Buckethead Army’ spot: which features kids, adults and amateur cricketers from across the country wearing a green and gold (Australia’s national colours) camouflage KFC bucket on their heads while singing the new KFC cricket anthem in unison.

Throughout the song a voice over yells ‘dinner’ as a call-to-home to all the Bucketheads who run off from their various locations to eat a KFC meal with their families.

The campaign comprises TV and online content, PR and social activities,

The HCG Buckethead Army is recruiting and our cricketers need YOUR SUPPORT Head to https://t.co/YlOA2io7m7 to enlist #bucketheadarmy pic.twitter.com/x9dGsEPZcG

— KFC Australia (@KFCAustralia) November 22, 2017

creative outdoor projections and murals

Get ready to don your Buckets, Australia. pic.twitter.com/RcG88N8K05

— KFC Australia (@KFCAustralia) November 17, 2017

and a digital microsite for Australians to join The HCG Buckethead Army and support the Ashes and KFC Big Bash league (see https://www.thehcg.com.au/).

Across its digital/social channels KFC has asked Australians to upload a photo with a KFC bucket on their head before taking part in an interactive ‘bang your bucket’ game.

While a Facebook bot, ‘Gary Bot’, has also been created to give users trivia, jokes and alert people when the ‘bang your bucket’ game is live to help them win prizes during the cricket games.

Plus there is plenty of support from the rights-holder Cricket Australia too.

“Over the years, we have seen more and more cricket fans donning a bucket to support the team. We couldn’t believe how this organic movement took off – and we wanted to come back this year bigger and better and make it an official movement,” said KFC Australia CMO Angela Richards.

“That’s how the idea for The HCG Buckethead Army came to fruition. We want to extend the celebrations outside of the match and really get Bucketheads everywhere. There’s a potential for 24 million Australians to show their support throughout Magellan Ashes, on the street, at work or even in their own ‘home cricket ground’ or HCG.”

Ogilvy Sydney group creative director Shaun Branagan added: “Who better to take on the Poms and their Barmy Army than our own Green and Gold Camo Buckethead Army? We are sending out a rallying cry across this wide brown land of ours to get people to enlist, and they are…in bucket-loads. That is, until dinner is called.”

The activation was created for KFC’s marketing team (led by chief marketing officer Angela Richards, marketing director Sally Spriggs, marketing manager Nora-Kate O’Connell and brand manager Belinda Thompson), by Ogilvy Sydney.

The Ogilvy squad included group creative director Shaun Branagan, copywriter Lewis Aramayo, art director Simon Dalla Pozza, senior agency producer Alison Chambers, head of strategy Ryan O'Connell, group account director Cassie Poiner, account director Kate Smith, account manager Ellen Corr, social strategist Jennifer Ngai, plus an Ogilvy X team with director Rey Carlson, exec producer Rob Spencer, producer Nat McNamara, DOP Geoffrey Hall, art director Tom Churchill-Brown, editor Michael Houlahan, grader Andrew Clarkson and online Hugh Seville.

While digital was handled by Ogilvy Sydney’s Michelle Holland, Jason Smith, Sonny Nguyen, Gina Hughes, Paola Pellagra and Oriane Veron, PR by an Ogilvy PR including Stephen Maher and Madeleine Hanley.

The media agency was MediaCom Australia, the sponsorship agency Prism Sport + Entertainment, the packaging was handled by Red Cactus and in-store work by Design Intoto.

Comment:

There is plenty of marketing background sitting behind this new campaign.

For example, the ‘Hole In My Bucket’ anthem is sung by a choir of children in part of a reference or homage to the iconic ‘I Still Call Australia Home’ Qantas ad.

Plus, the green and gold camouflage pattern on the buckethead echoes the famous 1990s jersey of the Australian football team (the Socceroos) worn by Ned Zelic when he scored a famous goal from an impossible angle against Holland to qualify us for the Barcelona Olympic Games.

While the HCG side of the activation links with the fast food brand’s ongoing marketing strand championing traditional Australian backyard cricket culture – Home Cricket Ground – which was first rolled out by KFC and Cricket Australia for the 2014-15 season and has subsequently evolved through several recent campaigns.

KFC signed as the official Fast Food Restaurant of Cricket Australia in 2003, and is the naming rights sponsor for both forms of Twenty20 cricket in Australia, the KFC Twenty20 international matches and the KFC Twenty20 Big Bash League.

The buckethead idea to get cricket fans to wear a KFC bucket on their heads, which has proven to be remarkably successful, is originally from KFC’s Big Bash League activation

and has subsequently been added to supporting the national side too.

At Activative, even our Aussies aren’t brave enough to wear green and gold camouflage bucket on their head anywhere outside the confines of a cricket ground.

But they have in the office and their kids are wearing at home around the dinner table.

Coincidentally, KFC aren’t the only brand to come up with an anthem ad idea to combat the Barmy Army and leverage Australian Ashes fever.

Mastercard has enlisted the help of award-winning songwriter Denis Carnahan, the world’s fastest bowler Mitchell Starc and Australian cricket legend Mike Hussey, to craft a branded ‘Barbie Army’ anthem and is then encouraging Australian cricket fans to embrace the soundtrack to summer to help drown out the Barmy Army during the Ashes.

This campaign rolled out on 22 November and encourages Australians to ‘Enjoy, share and learn our official Barbie Army anthem’ and then to ‘Submit your own chant for the chance to WIN tickets to The Ashes’.

Links:

KFC

https://www.youtube.com/user/KFCAustralia

https://www.kfc.com.au/

https://www.instagram.com/kfcaustralia/

https://twitter.com/kfcaustralia

https://www.facebook.com/KFC

Ogilvy Sydney

http://www.ogilvy.com.au/

Prism Sport + Entertainment

http://www.prismteam.com/

Cricket Australia