Chicken Licken's choosing-rhyme ad 'Piki Piki Mabelane' wins Loeries 2025 Grand Prix

A man who can't decide anything meets the Soul Square Meal — the ad built on South Africa's 'Piki Piki Mabelane' rhyme drew 125M impressions and +118% sales.

Chicken Licken

创意是什么Build the Soul Square Meal launch (Hotwings + chicken pieces) on SA's childhood rhyme 'Piki Piki Mabelane' — indecision becomes comedy, the meal ends the hero's crisis.伤筋动骨

当时的题目

Chicken Licken's research showed fans often couldn't choose between two menu icons — Hotwings and chicken pieces. In a fiercely competitive fast-food market, the brand launched the Soul Square Meal bundling both, and briefed Joe Public to sell the relief of not having to choose.

它是怎么成立的

Chicken Licken launched the Soul Square Meal — both Hotwings and chicken pieces in one — after research showed many South African fans couldn't pick between the two menu icons. Instead of a conventional product ad, Joe Public built the launch on 'Piki Piki Mabelane', the local version of 'Eenie Meenie Miney Moe' that children use to make random choices.

The film follows a man paralyzed by everyday decisions — paint colours, ice cream flavours — whose trusted childhood rhyme keeps letting him down. At the Chicken Licken counter he faces his biggest crisis yet, until the teller reveals the Soul Square Meal gives him both favourites. The relief lasts a beat before she asks, 'Original or SoulFire?'.

Directed by Karien Cherry of Giant Films and starring Phila Mazibuko, the spot became one of Chicken Licken's most-watched pieces of branded entertainment: 125 million impressions, 39 million views, a 39% engagement rate and 375,000+ social reactions. Value sales rose 118% and volume 119% year on year. At Loeries 2025 it won the Film Crafts – Performance Grand Prix — the first Loeries Grand Prix ever awarded to a Film Craft category — and Chicken Licken was Brand of the Year.

妙在哪

The childhood rhyme gave the whole nation a shared cultural reference, so the joke worked across South Africa's 11 official languages.
Indecision is a universal human weakness, so a hyper-local idea could still resonate globally and travel to international awards.
The product was written into the story as the resolution — the Soul Square Meal literally ends the hero's struggle, making the claim (have both) the punchline.
Casting and performance were treated as the craft: Phila Mazibuko's deadpan turn carried a film with no reliance on special effects.

做出来什么

125 million impressions and 39 million views (7.6M completed) with a 39% engagement rate and 375,000+ social reactions; value sales up 118% and volume up 119% year on year. At Loeries 2025 it won the Film Crafts – Performance Grand Prix — the first Loeries Grand Prix ever awarded to a Film Craft category — and Chicken Licken was named Brand of the Year.

可以借走的

A local cultural artifact can carry a launch: specific jokes travel when the feeling is universal, and making the customer's weakness the hero turns the product into relief, not marketing.

后来

The spot became Chicken Licken's most-watched branded entertainment and drove double-digit sales growth during one of the most competitive periods in South African fast food. Karien Cherry made Loeries history twice over: first Loeries Grand Prix awarded to a Film Craft category, and first woman director of a Grand Prix-winning film. The work later won at the 2026 One Show and was a Judges' Pick in IDIDTHAT's Cannes Lions predictions; Joe Public took Loeries Agency of the Year.

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