KFC’s 11 herbs and spices have been a secret for decades but now the brand has challenged gamers to try to recreate the recipe. In a game. When The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was launched, gamers in 17 countries discovered it had a special feature, a cooking competition. The Recipe Run asks gamers to recreate KFC’s fried chicken recipe. Thousands of gamers responded to see who could cook their own KFC-style chicken recipe the fastest in Zelda TOTK.

To compete in The Recipe Run, users had to work out their own version of KFC’s secret recipe in the video game by gathering chicken, oil and 11 herbs and spices of their choice from all those scattered throughout the virtual world of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom.

In addition, KFC partnered with SRE (@SpeedrunEspanol) to make The Recipe Run a global competition, in which amateur gamers from 17 countries around the world competed to make the recipe in record time and win a gold trophy in the form of a chicken thigh valued at €11,000.

In parallel, KFC also challenged users to share on Twitter the video clip recreating their secret fried chicken recipe in the video game. Within a few hours, the hashtag #TheRecipeRun was trending, representing 27% of the total conversation in the campaign period. In total, more than 145 million impressions in social media and more than 100 hours of organic content globally have been generated. All users who achieved the challenge received codes redeemable for a five-chicken strip menu on the KFC Spain app and website.

In a single week, KFC Spain had more than 2,500 participants in the action. As a result, web traffic increased by 58% during the days of the action and 44.5% of orders were placed via desktop, which contrasts with the 12% average of this type of orders in the previous five months. This data reveals that KFC managed to get its fried chicken cooks in the video game to also become consumers of its fried chicken.