KFC Bets on Belief With Its Biggest Ever UK Brand Campaign
KFC's "Believe in Chicken" is a 2024 UK film campaign created by Mother London that positions KFC fried chicken as a singular, dependable constant in a world defined by uncertainty, launching in primetime during UEFA Euro 2024 on ITV1 and subsequently described by KFC as its biggest-ever UK brand campaign.
The campaign arrived in the United Kingdom in June 2024, structured across two distinct phases. A teaser phase launched on 13 June 2024 with cryptic outdoor messages — including lines such as "trust in herbs, believe in spices" and "believe in the original" — seeded across the country to build intrigue before any product context was given. The main campaign film then premiered on 14 June 2024 during ITV1's broadcast of the UEFA Euro 2024 opening match between Germany and Scotland, occupying a 90-second primetime television slot, as reported by Campaign Live. That placement guaranteed the brand one of the largest simultaneous audiences available to a UK advertiser that summer.
The strategic proposition running through every asset is deliberate in its simplicity. The campaign's script catalogues a litany of modern British frustrations — unpredictable weather, unreliable relationships, jobs, sports teams, crowded trains, crisp packets that are half empty — before arriving at a single, emphatic counter-argument: chicken. KFC's chicken is framed as always good, always available, always crispy. The tagline, delivered with the rhythm of a conviction rather than a slogan, is "Believe. In. Chicken." According to coverage in Shots and Creative Salon, the campaign marked a deliberate shift in KFC's UK positioning away from product-led fried-chicken advertising toward establishing KFC as an iconic, dependable cultural institution in an unreliable world. The Clapboard Score for "Believe in Chicken" is 74 out of 100, reflecting the campaign's strong strategic clarity and cultural ambition.
KFC entered 2024 with a clear ambition to reposition its brand in the United Kingdom. As reported by LBBOnline, an executive at the brand articulated the starting point directly: "We started with a bold ambition: how do we make KFC one of the most iconic brands in the UK? The aim for KFC's next chapter was to create work that would have a cultural impact; work that would get the next generation's attention." That ambition shaped a strategy built not around product attributes but around emotional resonance.
The insight driving "Believe in Chicken" is grounded in a recognisable cultural mood. The campaign, as described in coverage by The Drum, frames KFC's offering as a "dark and humorous commentary on the chaos of life," with Mother London drawing explicitly on anxieties around artificial intelligence, political distrust, and generalised modern uncertainty. Rather than competing on product claims, KFC chose to compete on reliability as a feeling — a meaningfully different strategic register for a quick-service restaurant brand operating in one of the world's most competitive fast-food markets.
In the United Kingdom, that competitive landscape is formidable. McDonald's and Burger King are KFC's most direct rivals in the quick-service restaurant segment, with McDonald's holding a commanding share of UK consumer footfall and advertising spend across television, digital, and outdoor channels. According to data from Credence Research, the global fried-chicken market was estimated at approximately $93.33 billion in 2024, growing at a compound annual growth rate of around 6.4 percent through 2034 — a rate that outpaces the broader QSR category. Within the United Kingdom specifically, that growth dynamic makes differentiation at the brand level, rather than the product level, a strategically defensible choice. By anchoring belief and dependability to the KFC name rather than to any single menu item, Mother London built a platform with the structural flexibility to extend across future campaigns.
Director Vedran Rupic helmed the main campaign film for "Believe in Chicken," produced through Business Club London for Mother London. Speaking to Shots on 14 June 2024, Rupic described his initial response to the brief with directness: "From the start, I had a really good feeling about this campaign. It's bold, clear and simple." That clarity of vision is evident in the finished work, which uses surreal choreography to visually externalise the campaign's written inventory of modern British disappointments before resolving into the warmth and certainty of KFC's product.
The creative execution operates across multiple channels and registers simultaneously. The outdoor teaser phase, which ran across the United Kingdom from 13 June 2024, deployed cryptic messaging deliberately stripped of any brand identifier — a decision that demanded confidence in the eventual reveal and in the audience's willingness to engage with ambiguity. Lines such as "trust in herbs, believe in spices" functioned as cultural riddles seeded into urban environments, generating conversation before the television launch gave them context, as documented in reporting by Campaign Live and Creative Salon.
The 90-second television film, as described in coverage by Shots and The Drum, pairs the spoken manifesto — a wry, escalating list of modern letdowns delivered in a tone that sits between lamentation and dark comedy — with visual sequences that amplify the absurdity of contemporary life. According to Creative Salon, the campaign also incorporated guerrilla activity alongside the outdoor and broadcast elements, reinforcing the campaign's presence in physical UK environments beyond the conventional media plan. The overall production aesthetic reflects Mother London's established appetite for work that sits at the intersection of cultural observation and comedic precision, treating the film format as an opportunity for genuine narrative craft rather than conventional product demonstration.
"Believe in Chicken" generated substantial public engagement following its June 2024 launch in the United Kingdom. According to data accessible via the campaign's public record, the campaign accumulated 917,836 views and 5,818 likes alongside 2,970 comments — an engagement profile that reflects the cultural conversation the brand and Mother London explicitly set out to provoke. The volume of comments in particular suggests the campaign succeeded in its stated ambition to generate a response rather than merely reach an audience.
KFC's own characterisation of the campaign as its biggest-ever UK brand campaign, as reported by Campaign Live and Creative Salon, provides a further indicator of the internal confidence placed in the work. That designation implies a commitment of media spend, production resource, and strategic intent that goes beyond a standard seasonal activation. The decision to secure a 90-second primetime slot on ITV1 during the UEFA Euro 2024 opening match — one of the most watched live television events of the summer in the United Kingdom — reflects the scale at which the campaign was designed to operate.
The campaign has also received recognition within the industry. "Believe in Chicken" appears in The AOTW Editors Choice Collection, an editorially curated selection that recognises creative distinction across the advertising industry globally. No further independently verified award tallies or brand health tracking results are publicly available at the time of writing. What the structural evidence does confirm is that KFC and Mother London built a campaign designed for cultural durability — one with an idea simple enough to be quoted and distinctive enough to be remembered in a United Kingdom market where fast-food advertising competes intensely for exactly that quality of attention.
KFC's Believe in Chicken is a 2024 UK film campaign created by Mother London. It positions KFC chicken as a dependable constant in a chaotic modern world. The campaign launched in June 2024 with a cryptic outdoor teaser phase followed by a 90-second television film during UEFA Euro 2024 on ITV1.
Mother London created the Believe in Chicken campaign for KFC. Director Vedran Rupic helmed the main film through production company Business Club London. Vedran Rupic described the campaign to Shots as "bold, clear and simple" at the time of its June 2024 launch in the United Kingdom.
The campaign launched in the United Kingdom in June 2024. A teaser phase began on 13 June 2024 with cryptic outdoor messaging across the UK. The main film premiered on 14 June 2024 during ITV1's broadcast of the UEFA Euro 2024 opening match between Germany and Scotland.
KFC described Believe in Chicken as its biggest-ever UK brand campaign, as reported by Campaign Live and Creative Salon. The campaign marked a strategic shift away from product-led advertising toward establishing KFC as a culturally iconic, dependable institution — a broader ambition reflected in the scale of its media investment and ITV1 primetime placement.
Believe in Chicken appears in The AOTW Editors Choice Collection, an editorially curated recognition of creative distinction in advertising globally. The campaign holds a Clapboard Score of 74 out of 100. No further independently verified award results are publicly available at the time of writing for this 2024 UK campaign.
According to Creative Salon and LBBOnline, Believe in Chicken represents a deliberate repositioning of KFC in the United Kingdom. Mother London shifted the brand away from product-focused fried-chicken advertising toward a platform built on cultural relevance and emotional dependability, with the stated goal of making KFC one of the most iconic brands in the UK.
.webp)
Creative Collaboration Platform: The Backbone of Modern Creative WorkWhat is a creative collaboration platform?Clapboard defines a creative collaboration platform as the operational core for today’s distributed creative teams. This is not a collection of digital collaboration tools stitched together; Clapboard’s system
Understanding the Creative Production MarketplaceWhat is a Creative Production Marketplace?Clapboard defines a creative production marketplace as a structured ecosystem where brands, agencies, and production talent converge to execute video, advertising, and branded content at scale. Unlike the legacy agency or freelanREAD FULL ARTICLE
The Urgent Need for a Creative Production Operating SystemWhy Traditional Creative Production Models Break DownClapboard sees the creative production landscape shifting under pressure. Content velocity is no longer a buzzword—it’s a mandate. Modern advertising demands relentless output across dozens of channels, each wREAD FULL ARTICLE
