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The Rebranding of the Colonel

From the MIT laboratory for Branding Cultures (via Todd), we see that Colonel Sanders has had a facelift.

As Todd notes:

  • No more embarrassing eyebrows
  • New high-contrast face and hair-lines
  • Colonial-era suit replaced with apron. With all the boomers retiring sans adequate retirement savings, this might be a portend of our evolving views on where the elderly fit into society.

A tip of the hat to the old boy. I still won’t eat your shitty chicken, Colonel, but shine on.

The only time in the last decade that I’ve partaken of the Colonel (man, that sounds like slang for something dirty, doesn’t it?) was in Hermanus, South Africa, and desperate for something familiar.

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Darren Barefoot is an author, speaker and digital strategist. He’s the co-founder of Capulet Communications, and co-author of “Friends With Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook”.

7 comments

  1. Arrghh the COLONEL!!!
    (Insert humurous Simpsons visuals here)

    Is there nothing finer after an all night bender than a bucket of cold Kentucky Fried Chicken straight from the fridge?

    I think not… except maybe some hot poutine lavished with gravy, bacon and cheese curd.

  3. how can it be familiar if you’ve never eaten there before that trip to africa?

  4. Steve: Well, I have eaten it before, just not in the past decade or so. In truth, it’s not about the food itself, it’s about the cultural familiarity. When traveling, it’s occasionally pleasing to order something ordinary and familiar–no stressing over what you’re going to get, or how you’re going to get it. Such was the case with the Colonel.

  6. KFC has been doing some major image revamping of late, in an effort, I’d say, to counteract billboards, etc taking them to task for, you know, boiling chickens alive and such. Are they trying to take the sting out of PETA’s rendering of the Colonel, I wonder?
    http://www.kentuckyfriedcruelty.com/

  7. I know what Darren means about familiarity. When I was 15 and had been in Japan for about 3 weeks, I was starting to get homesick. The first time my (Canadian) friend and I hit the mall, we headed for KFC. We ordered huge lunches and chowed down, much to the astonishment of our host families. KFC was fairly rare to my Canadian dining experience, but it was so un-Japanese that it served as comfort food.

    On the other hand, when I went to Trinidad, there were more KFCs than I could have ever imagined. My brother-in-law, a Trini, said KFC was part of the national psyche!

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