The Colonel’s (Brand) New Clothes

Quoted from Brand New and Mark:

Yesterday, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC to friends), unveiled a new logo that, in a nutshell, stripped Colonel Sanders’ signature white double-breasted coat and adorned him with a red apron while maintaining the identifiable thick-rimmed glasses, goatee and string tie, all in a neatly contemporary and fresh style.

KFC has maintained a remarkably consistent brand identity over the past 50 years, putting all its efforts into Colonel Sanders’ image and has only manipulated its depiction five times in five decades — always maintaining the defining elements while adapting to the unavoidable visual shifts of the fast food industry. In the past five or seven years most fast food chains have been TacoBellized: logo at an angle, dimension (with flat colors, not gradients, thank you) and bright and bold colors.

The new KFC brand will be implemented in 14,000-plus restaurants spread throughout 80 countries in the next few years and is accompanied by one of those stunts that sound great in a boardroom but just leave everyone else wondering “is it really worth it?”: A 65,000 square foot giant logo in the Area 51 dessert — seriously?! — that can be seen from space — for all of us that commute from Pluto we can take advantage of the gridlock around the moon to enjoy the logo while bottle-necked — code-named the “Face from Space” and consisting of “6,000 red, 14,000 white, 12,000 eggshell, 5,000 beige and 28,000 black” tiles. In the skeptical, mocking words of Borat: Niiiice! I rarely preach social consciousness but, c’mon, save the money, donate the cost of those tiles and manpower as food for shelters. Stunts like these are unimpressive and a waste of resources.