How Simba’s Collab with KFC Proved to Be ‘Finger Lickin’ Good’
When you’re snacking on delicious treats, there’s nothing better than getting to the flavourful crumbs at the bottom of the bag, or licking the crumbs off your caked fingers. If you aren’t a fan of snacking with your hands, I’m sure that sounds like quite the nightmare – but for those of us who relish it, KFC’s ‘Finger Lickin’ Good’ motto always has us craving more.
Feeding into this, and in a collaboration with restaurant chain KFC, South Africa’s Simba crisps showed audiences exactly how good the Zinger flavour is by placing focus on a character whose goal was to keep the delicious crumbs on his fingers for as long as possible. Showering with one hand out of the tub, tying shoelaces without using a second hand and strategically playing pool to keep the crumbs in place – an unavoidable high five sends the protagonist crashing down as the crumbs fall off his hand. But no worries, the limited edition flavour is still available, so you can crumb coat your fingers once again!
To share the process behind creating this crisp campaign, the quick turnaround and the hyper-real images we see, ROBOT’s director Paul Ramaema speaks to LBB’s Nisna Mahtani.
LBB> When you first heard of the product, what were your thoughts on the creative campaign which should go along with it?
Paul> How can we expand on the idea of hyperbolised scenarios without them feeling overly contrived and seemingly feeling far removed from real life situations?
We wanted to showcase situational comedy while focusing in on the Zinger flavoured hand, which our lead cast had to use in order to drive the humour.
LBB> KFC Zinger flavour crisps certainly sound like something you’d want to savour, but how did you land on the concept for this spot?
Paul> The idea came from the agency creatives at M&CSaatchi Abel Johannesburg, our job was to figure out how the story would remain interesting by bringing in the eventuality of our hero being sent off to go find more of the flavour. How we depicted that was by considering an involuntary moment where he indulges in the celebration of a brief encounter with friends that leads to the handshake moment that inevitably removes the flavour from the hand.
LBB> The shots where the protagonist is going about daily duties with one hand really shows the dedication to savouring the flavour. What were some of the daily tasks you wanted to include and why?
Paul> We wanted to extend the tasks by having him work on his laptop, multi-tasking with his other hand while his flavourful one remains in the air. The struggle of him getting ready using one hand. There was also an initial consideration of having his pet dog lick the flavour off of his hand which the client felt slightly apprehensive about, and that led us to the handshake drama.
LBB> There’s a very crisp, clean feeling to the spot. Can you talk us through how you achieved this aesthetic?
Paul> The whole idea was to depict this hyper-real world and looking at the campaign's previous commercials, the agency wanted to direct it towards a much cooler and more realistic feel but using art direction and wardrobe to dial up the warmth in certain areas. Taking that into consideration, our overall approach with the grade and lighting was to infuse this crisp, clean look by using blue tones in our hero's world and finding a location which could give us the contrast aligned with their proposed look and feel. If you pay close attention to the art styling, we planted easter eggs that symbolised the events which were unfolding for our hero and this related us back to the hyperbolic idea of the spot.
LBB> In terms of getting authentic reactions from the actors, what are some of the techniques you use as a director?
Paul> What was great was that we worked with professional actors, giving us an opportunity to consider framing that suited a comedic feel. Their [the actors’] strong and natural performances enhanced this for us. I had to ensure that we didn’t over dramatise their performances by reminding them that we needed quick reactive moments as the scenes wouldn’t play out for that long.
The wardrobe call is also usually a great time to involve the cast in your creative treatment process and approach to the film. This gives them a greater resonance and understanding of the script and its requirements. It additionally gives performers time to soak it all in, rehearse the scenes in their personal time and deliver a range of emotions during the actual filming process. Something which helps a great deal when working against time.
LBB> The slow-mo high five emphasises the lack of finger-licking crumbs. Talk us through the planning and execution of the shot.
Paul> Interestingly enough, the high frame rate idea came from our DOP. This is something I enjoy when partnering up with DOPs who make valuable contributions to the script and aren’t only tied down to what you want. We felt that it heightens the effect of the realisation of the flavour being removed from his hand. Shooting it at slow-mo also gave us an opportunity to play it out in real time if we wanted to, but had we shot it at a normal rate we wouldn’t have had the option to go slow, it may not have turned out as cinematic. This was the idea that we felt gave the story a stronger believability in the reason why our hero would want to go grab more of the flavour from the store, his ‘late call to adventure’ so to speak.
LBB> Where did you shoot and how did you create consistency across each frame?
Paul> We shot in Bryanston, which is a suburb in the northern area of Johannesburg. Having movement in each of my frames is something I tend to aspire towards, so creating a rhythm and pace with the movement of our camera in each frame gave us a sense of cinematic style and consistency that relates to the idea of creating momentum in our story inadvertently giving us a stylised camera language.
LBB> We have to mention the end scene with all the packets of crisps perfectly lined up. How long did it take to perfectly place each bag for that shot?
Paul> I would have to chat with our art director about this. It took us a good 45 minutes to prep everything up in order to make clients feel appeased by seeing their packaging in all its glory, neatly and stylishly placed. Once they were happy with the product placement, we kept it as is and only replaced the packet which POPPs grabbed from the rack, in case it was crunched up. We enhanced the visual look by adding red strobe lights under the packets to accentuate the red colour of the packet itself.
LBB> And how long did it take overall to get the campaign planned, shot and released?
Paul> Client now refers to us as the quick, turnaround team and should we keep it up, we may end up finding ourselves turning jobs around within a week's course. Overall I would say this was an intensive three week preparation.
LBB> What’s next for Simba?
Paul> More Zingers for longer.
