• by Nina Lentini  @Nina_Lentini, May 22, 2007

A 15-second commercial for KFC that will debut tonight during the "American Idol" finale is a twist on the current trend of asking consumers to create content for commercials. In fact, the stars of these videos had no idea they'd end up on national TV.

Draftfcb of Chicago developed the spot, which also will run on other networks over the next few weeks, by visiting popular video sharing communities on the Internet.

It features 13 very short clips of people celebrating in various ways-dancing, leaping, jumping and even blowing out birthday candles on a KFC bucket of chicken-which the company has morphed into a "Celebration" of its zero grams trans fat conversion last month. The commercial continues Louisville, Ky.-based KFC's new campaign, "The Bucket's Back."

Set to William Tell's "Overture," the spot cost about a quarter of what it traditionally costs to produce a commercial, a KFC spokesperson told Marketing Daily.

"We kept the finger lickin' good taste of KFC when we rolled out our zero grams of trans fat per serving menu items last month -- and America has sounded its approval," said KFC CMO James O'Reilly in the press release.

The company says the stars and amateur videographers were surprised to hear about their upcoming prime-time appearances. One young woman, who is shown dancing in her sister's kitchen, ironically had tried out for "American Idol" but never made the cut.

"The KFC brand itself is a genuine, real-people kind of brand so using consumer-generated content just made sense," said Tom O'Keefe, chief creative officer of Draftfcb, in the release.

KFC replaced the partially hydrogenated soybean oil previously used in its U.S. restaurants with a low linolenic soybean oil.

There are more than 14,000 KFC outlets in more than 80 countries and territories around the world. KFC is a subsidiary of Yum! Brands.