• September 27, 2012

Yum! Brands, parent of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, is kicking off its annual World Hunger Relief initiative with a new public service campaign featuring Christina Aguilera.

Aguilera has served as global spokesperson for Yum! Brands’ World Hunger Relief effort since 2009, helping to raise millions for the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) and other hunger relief agencies.

The new PSA, which will begin airing in October in 15- and 30-second and extended versions, depicts a mother's anguish over her inability to feed her hungry child. Aguilera urges viewers to donate at FromHungertoHope.com. The PSAs feature her single "The Voice Within" as background music.

Aguilera will also appear in World Hunger Relief posters at KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell restaurants with the quote “Together we can use our voices for good to save lives and move from hunger to hope,” and in advertising and online efforts, including on the campaign’s FromHungertoHope site.

Yum! plans to generate the equivalent of nearly $50 million in awareness of the hunger issue through PSAs, advertising,PR, Web-based communications and in-restaurant posters. The company’s employees and franchisees around the world will volunteer their time at hunger relief agencies, food banks and soup kitchens and in launching fundraisers.

Since 2007, Yum! Brands’ World Hunger Relief program has raised $115 million for WFP and other hunger relief organizations, helping to provide 460 million meals. More than 1 million employees, franchisees and their families have volunteered millions of hours to aid hunger relief efforts in communities worldwide. 

In the U.S., Yum!'s two-decades-old Harvest program is now the largest prepared-food donation program in the world, according to the company. Through Harvest, Yum! has donated more than 148 million pounds of food, with a value of nearly $650 million, to those at risk of hunger in the U.S.

Yum! has also been the primary sponsor of the Dare to Care Food Bank in Louisville, Ky, for 10 years, and has donated $10 million to the local agency. -- Karlene Lukovitz