The meteoric rise of KFC has taken the fast-food industry by storm since Harland Sanders opened his first restaurant in 1930. The first branch of KFC was opened in Lancashire in 1965; by April 2014, KFC had 860 outlets across the UK, selling around 60,000 tonnes of chicken every year with a customer base of around 143m. Ticketmedia has developed an established relationship with KFC, helping to increase community awareness of its offers and an increase in return on investment.
As a highly effective redemption medium that works particularly well when targeting the youth market, our bus ticket advertising service for KFC was a perfect fit from the outset. We collaborated with stores in Exeter Exmouth, Portsmouth and Plymouth to implement bus ticket advertising trial campaigns over the course of seven days (Exeter and Exmouth, Portsmouth) and ten days (Plymouth). All areas registered substantial redemptions, with an average ROI of 412%. Our client in Portsmouth registered a total of 600 redemptions and ROI of 374% over the course of one week, while the ten-day campaign in Plymouth registered 1,697 redemptions and ROI of 379.6%. We gained our biggest result over to the west of the country in Exeter and Exmouth, with 2,203 redemptions (around 500 per store) and an increase in ROI of 482%.
As our continued business partnership with fast food outlets like KFC reveals, fast food campaigns on the back of public transport tickets is a great way to market to a younger audience on the go. 4.7 billion bus passenger journeys were recorded in England between January and March 2015 alone, and bus use in London increased by 0.4% to 2.39 billion journeys. In the latest National Travel Survey published by the Department of Transport, 17-20 year-olds are the biggest users of the bus service than any other age group, taking twice as many bus trips as the national average. Women in this demographic are most likely to use this form of transport, with nearly 1 in 5 trips taken by bus.
Unlike traditional static advertising methods, such as billboards that are usually passed within a few seconds, public transport users must travel with their tickets for long periods of time. Our USP (unique selling proposition) is that we can distribute clients’ adverts straight into the hands of their target audience. Bus ticket advertising can create brand awareness, whether it is used by the customer or passed over to someone else.
Ticketmedia prides itself on being a ticket advertising market leader and is globally recognised as the leading authority. Our team is able to print 98% of UK bus tickets in house from our own factory in Hove and provides a fully inclusive design and campaign management service. We also boast successful recall rates – up to 90% – due to the fact that we have a thorough understanding of the market and target demographics. We can even deliver a depot-specific strategy depending on trends and budget. With more than 12,000 campaigns under our belts, the Ticketmedia team are experts in the field.