92 years ago, 40-year old Harland David Sanders began to feed hungry travelers who stopped by at his gas station in small Corbin, Kentucky. In 1954, Sanders sold KFC for 2 million dollars and later passed away at the age of 90.

Ever since, KFC had been on the decline and decided to sign with a new ad agency in 2015.

37 years after his passing Weiden+Kennedy set out to bring the colonel back from the dead. W+K build a marketing strategy centered around the face of KFC: Colonel Sanders.

KFC Zinger Launch | August 2017

(And yes, they did actually launch a chicken sandwich into space.)

But the colonel’s return from space was just the beginning of a 7-year long ad campaign centered around the colonel himself. Sanders spent his retirement after founding KFC when he was 65, traveling the country to sell chicken. This is why almost every major KFC ad campaign has the Colonel as the central theme and sole salesman. Which is the beginning of what I refer to as the KFC Multiverse. KFC even won Eater Magazine’s brand of the year.

After the positive response and the new look, as Weiden+Kennedy put it:

"For Kentucky Fried Chicken, things were once again, Finger-Lickin’ Good."

He’s not a celebrity; he’s not even real.

Over the next few years, W+K would continue to new versions and representations of colonel sanders. Including a robot Sanders and even a virtual Instagram influencer. This the beginning of what I refer to as The KFC Multiverse.

Pre-quarantine feels like long ago now, so just to refresh your memory, in 2019, there was a growing trend of ‘virtual influencers’ and I some are still very popular, like lil miquela on TikTok and Instagram. However, KFC did it differently since their ‘influencer’ is their very own Colonel Sanders. Colonel Sanders worked with different brands to promote innovation (much like his chicken recipe), lifestyle inspiration, inspirational collabs (like the 11 spices and herbs of KFC chicken), and authentic Gen-Z engagement.

Colonel Sanders partnered with several different brands to promote their products (not just KFC), such as Dr.Pepper, Old Spice, and even TurboTax. All business inquiries were to be directed towards secretrecipeforsuccess@gmail.com.

Colonel Sanders spent the next few months doing promos, collabs, and showing off his passion for cooking. People looked at it more like satire than something to be taken for real, but people still really enjoyed it. On April 22, 2019, Colonel Sanders signed off.

It wasn’t long until KFC launched their next marketing campaign; A dating sim starring the Colonel where players could fall in love with the man himself and all 11 of those herbs and spices. When it was first announced, people thought that maybe it was a fan made game or a joke. But on September 24, 2019, I love you Colonel Sanders was released on steam (a pc gaming store) for free.

The game was fairly well-received with videos of gameplay spanning the internet and I recommend you check out a few clips, because it’s an interesting game to be made by such a large corporate entity.

With this advertising approach, you can see KFC’s continued attempt to appeal towards their growing gen-z audience. I found this form of advertisement interesting, and I feel like it breaks the barriers and makes you question what an ad truly is. According to Oxford Languages Dictionary, an advertisement is described as a notice or announcement in a public medium promoting a product, service, or event or publicizing a job vacancy. OR as a person or thing regarded as a means of recommending something.

I Love You Colonel Sanders | 2019

In this day and age, there’s a growing difficulty distinguishing an ad from everyday consumable media. Especially with the rise of Youtube, there have been several issues with children’s advertising since there are rules in place that influencers have to make it clear enough that their video or promo is an advertisement to children. I think this game highlights just how expansive and diversified advertising can become.

Mario Lopez + Colonel Sanders =

A Recipe for Seduction

With that, we can move onto KFC’s partnership with Lifetime Movie Network to create an entire film. Well, a short film. The film is 16 minutes to be exact, starring Mario Lopez as the Colonel we all know and love.

A Recipe for Seduction | 2020

The film was announced on December 7, 2020, and premiered December 13, 2020, just in time for the holidays. The movie was available to watch on Lifetime Movie Network Platforms, Youtube, and even through hulu. The announcement of the film was met with confusion, some saying KFC went too far this time and that it might not be as well received their previous marketing tactics. However, after the premierble, it became a point of discussion and has tons of reaction videos, which is a primary way to get views nowadays. Overall, a Recipe for Seduction received a Rotten Tomatoes Score of a whopping 70%. This isn’t too bad when you consider the fact that a good score is considered a 75% on Rotten Tomatoes so I see this one as a win for KFC.

Weird and Wacky in the Right Way

I think there is a lot to learn from KFC, they have always been really good at entering difficult markets and diversifying. I think that in a time when meme culture is a big thing, Weiden+Kennedy really did it right, unlike other companies that have a one-off decision to do something weird and wacky, such as with Wendy’s or Burger King. They managed to find a way to make KFC's weird and different approach to advertising an iconic part of the brand. It’s all different but has the same premise. They stuck with Colonel Sanders as their center and the story always stays the same, ‘11 spices and a dream’ with a different delivery. Restaurant Business Magazine highlights KFC as a "marketing machine.” KFC U.S. CMO Andrea Zahumensky explained that

“Everything we do here kind of goes back to our founder, Harland Sanders,
who was this feisty, “do-whatever-he-could-to-sell-fried-chicken” type of person.

By taking a look at the core of their company, KFC found a future in Marketing. By being unafraid to take risks and align with the identity of a fun man who was crazy about selling chicken.