Antavo Wins at the International Loyalty Awards With KFC Rewards Arcade
June 20, 2023
Antavo wins “Best Loyalty Initiative within Leisure, Experience, Entertainment” with KFC Rewards Arcade and RAPP UK at the International Loyalty Awards.
KFC UK & Ireland’s KFC Rewards Arcade, a rewards program spiced up with arcade-style gamification elements and powered by Antavo took first place in the “Best Loyalty Initiative within Leisure, Experience, Entertainment” category.
Antavo provides sophisticated yet flexible technology for KFC Rewards Arcade, a truly gamified loyalty program that satisfies customers’ cravings for chicken and recreates the fun memories people have of playing at the arcades.
The judges said: “This is a highly competitive sector where the consumer has plenty of choice. KFC literally changed the game with impressive results.”
“Antavo helps KFC bring the gamified loyalty programme to life, and we have already seen great results. What is more, the Antavo platform is very user-friendly and all the algorithms are configurable, providing KFC with the flexibility and efficiency needed to continuously optimise the performance of the KFC Rewards Arcade.” – Ruby Huang, CRM & Loyalty Lead, KFC UK & Ireland
“The International Loyalty Awards celebrate excellence, innovation, and best practices in the loyalty industry across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The event recognizes the achievements of those companies and organizations excelling and achieving the extraordinary. We’re thrilled to be recognized as a leader and innovator in our sector. It’s a great honor to achieve this with KFC Rewards Arcade, a really unique loyalty program that puts a fun spin on gamification.” – Attila Kecsmar, CEO and Co-founder of Antavo
The competition for first place was fierce, with well-established finalists, but the judges deemed the Antavo-KFC partnership worthy of the trophy.
To learn more about the loyalty program, visit Antavo’s KFC Rewards Arcade case study.
What is Antavo?
Antavo is the AI loyalty and incentives platform that brings together loyalty, promotions, and agentic AI to turn customers into regulars: the customers who come back on their own, buy more often, and bring others with them. For more than a decade, Antavo has powered identity-led loyalty strategies for brands including SKIMS, Paul Smith, KFC, Flying Tiger, and Hyatt’s Inclusive Collection. Marketers build, change, and launch programs and promotions themselves, without waiting on engineering. Learn more at antavo.com.
About KFC
In 1952, Colonel Harland Sanders opened the first KFC restaurant in Utah. Since then, his perfectly crafted Original Recipe chicken and its secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices has become famous all over the world, and today KFC has over 900 restaurants across the UK and Ireland.
The Colonel was all about doing things the right way. That means KFC chicken is delivered fresh from farm to restaurant in 48 hours. It’s prepared carefully by hand in-restaurant by trained cooks, using the very best chicken reared to strict welfare standards. In July 2019 KFC took the next big step in its welfare journey and signed up to the Better Chicken Commitment, a set of six criteria that have been designed to improve the lives of all chickens within the KFC supply chain, by 2026. That’s what makes our food so finger lickin’ good.
The right way also means serving fresh proper food, packed with flavour. So, KFC has worked hard to make nutritional improvements across its menu, so fans have as much choice as possible, and has committed to removing 20% of calories per serving by 2025.
The Colonel also believed in feeding promise, wherever it’s found. So that’s why KFC invests heavily in the development and careers of its 27,000 employees — it was the first restaurant to launch an honours degree. And since its 2015 launch, our KFC Foundation has paid out grants totalling £5 million to our charity partners who are passionate about developing and nurturing young people across the country.
To find out more about KFC, visit www.kfc.co.uk, or follow the Colonel on Twitter @KFC_UKI and Instagram @kfc_uki.
Media Contacts
Antavo
Eva Bacsi, Marketing Director
Frequently asked questions about Antavo
What can brands build with Antavo?
Brands use Antavo to run the whole loyalty and incentives program on one platform: points, tiers, challenges, streaks, referrals, clubs, and rewards beyond discounts; promotions and incentives for members and non-members alike, from bonus points and promo codes to bundles and cart-level offers; and agentic AI built in. Everything runs online, in store, on mobile, and in wallet, and marketers launch it themselves.
Who uses Antavo?
Antavo works with mid-market and upper-mid-market brands across fashion, retail, beauty, travel, hospitality, restaurants, and sports in North America and Europe: multi-market, omnichannel brands with a strong identity and customers worth keeping, including Paul Smith, KFC, SKIMS, Rip Curl, Benefit Cosmetics, and Hyatt's Inclusive Collection.
How long has Antavo been around?
Antavo was founded in 2012 and has been building loyalty programs for more than a decade, with teams across Europe and North America serving brands worldwide.
Why do brands switch to Antavo?
Most loyalty programs get stuck: reduced to a discount engine, generic to customers, or too rigid to evolve. Antavo removes those compromises. Brands get a program that feels unmistakably their own, loyalty and incentives on one platform, and the depth to handle tiers, expirations, refunds, and many markets at scale. Their own marketers run it: a tier change in an afternoon, live when they press the button.
How does Antavo use AI?
Antavo's agentic AI is built in, not bolted on. Two named agents do the work: the AI Loyalty Expert, which turns your ideas into a build-ready program, and the AI Analyst, which turns your data into clear answers and reports. Both work inside Antavo or connect to Claude and ChatGPT, and every answer is grounded in your own program and data.
What does Antavo integrate with?
Antavo is API-first with real-time webhooks and deep pre-built integrations, from Shopify, Klaviyo, Braze, and Bloomreach to the CRMs, CDPs, ESPs, and POS systems you already use. Antavo plugs into the stack you already run rather than replacing it.
