The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2018–2022
KFC China's 'Crazy Thursday' went viral; brand voice rose 12.9 times
KFC China's Thursday promo became a meme; official co-creation boosted voice 12.9x, won Effie Grand Prix.
KFC China (肯德基) · Yum China (百胜中国)
What it had to solve
Starting in 2018, KFC China targeted Thursday, the lowest sales day of each week, using 9.9 yuan discounts plus repetitive, catchy ads for promotion; by 2021, low-price promotions had been copied by competitors such as McDonald's (麦当劳) and Burger King (汉堡王) into homogeneous competition, while users began spontaneously creating Crazy Thursday jokes, and the brand needed to upgrade the promotion into a participatory cultural event.
How it works
In 2018, KFC China launched 'Crazy Thursday': targeting Thursday, the lowest sales day of each week, it used 9.9 yuan and 19.9 yuan discounts paired with repetitive, catchy ads to turn a sales low day into a weekly bargain-hunting check-in day. Single-day promotions quickly drew imitators—McDonald's launched 'Crazy Monday' (嗨翻星期一), and Burger King set a Wednesday membership day, and the low-price war began to become homogeneous.
The turning point came in 2021: young people began spontaneously creating 'Crazy Thursday literature' every Thursday—bizarre little stories that suddenly pivoted halfway through to 'please treat me to Crazy Thursday'. KFC did not ignore or suppress these organic jokes; instead it joined in: turning users' jokes into posters, holding an online livestream award ceremony for the 'Crazy Thursday Literature Gala' at year-end to recognize outstanding creations, and officially playing with users.
As a result, in 2021 the brand online voice volume of 'Crazy Thursday' rose 12.9 times; in December, single-month exposure reached 1.13 billion, and during the period it trended on Weibo hot search four times; the promotion day was upgraded into a youth cultural event, the project won the 2022 Greater China Effie Awards Grand Prix, and thereafter the December 'Crazy Thursday Gala' (疯四盛典) became a fixed IP.
Why it lands
- Turn a fixed promotion day into a brand IP, then let user content become advertising material; the brand only needs to catch and amplify it.
- The brand officially joined the meme rather than deleting it, turning potentially uncontrollable UGC into co-created assets, with an attitude aligned with young people.
- The repeated ritual every Thursday allowed the meme to keep stacking: brand voice volume rose 12.9 times in one year, proving that a fixed rhythm can build assets better than a single hit.
- Upgrading from price competition to cultural competition turned the promotion day into an emotional outlet, escaping homogeneous low-price wars.
What it did
In 2021, the brand online voice volume of 'Crazy Thursday' rose 12.9 times; in December, single-month exposure reached 1.13 billion, and during the period it trended on Weibo (微博) hot search four times; the project won the 2022 Greater China Effie Awards Grand Prix (大中华区艾菲奖全场大奖) and was treated by the industry as a phenomenon-level promotion IP.
What you can take
Promotions can become culture: catch and amplify user memes; fixed festival plus co-creation builds brand assets.
Since then
Crazy Thursday subsequently became a long-term IP for KFC China: every December it held the 'Crazy Thursday Gala' as a fixed event; 'V me 50' (V我50) changed from an advertising line into a nationwide meme; in 2024, the Gala's Douyin (抖音) livestream room recorded single-session GMV that ranked first on Douyin's full-year national group-buying category list; competitors such as McDonald's and Burger King successively imitated single-day promotions but did not replicate the same cultural momentum. The industry repeatedly reviewed it as a representative case of 'promotion IP-ization'.
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