Chicken Licken bravely debones a rare phobia with their latest campaign

In a market flooded by predictable chicken nugget campaigns, Chicken Licken cut through the coop by uncovering a unique and comically obvious insight that challenges how consumers see their nuggets, aka SoulBites®. A small percentage of the population has a fear of bones, and it so happens that SoulBites, as nuggets, are boneless – thus the campaign idea was born. “SoulBites, Boneless Bites of Soul, for the few who fear bones…and everyone else.”

The campaign launched with a film that focused on the plights of the bone-phobic few. It showed South Africans from different walks of life, coming together and sharing their harrowing, yet humorous, bone encounters. From a mother terrified of skeleton costumes during Halloween, to a student fainting at the sight of giant whale fossils on a school trip, the motley crew of cartilogenophobics have their intimate moment interrupted by an unlikely, drumstick shaped hero, SoulBites – which so happen to be Boneless Bites of Soul.

The rest of the campaign saw Chicken Licken stand for the unlucky few in various clever ways, be it warning viewers about images or scenes of bones before and during blockbusters such as Jurassic World and rewarding them for bravely watching till the end, to an web series that proved SoulBites were indeed boneless – with the help of a mini-guillotine, a real katana and an x-ray. The bravery of a chicken brand challenging a niche phobia of bones, did not go unnoticed nor unappreciated by fans and media pundits alike, as views and shares reached millions in the first two weeks of the campaign.

“We took a chance by pushing Chicken Licken into a different direction with this campaign, finding humour in unlikely spaces, having multiple protagonists in the film and reframing our nuggets as Boneless Bites of Soul…,” comments Adam Weber, integrated executive creative director at Joe Public.

View the TVC here: