
Until a fast-food restaurant places ads on the moon, the publicity stunt that
KFC used to unveil its new
logo earlier this week gets my vote for most bizarre. The chicken purveyor placed a gargantuan logo in the Nevada desert, making it the first brand visible from outer space. The outsized ad measures 87,000 square feet, a whopping six-and-a-half times bigger than the dome of the Taj Mahal.
The new logo is part of a rebranding effort that includes using the name Kentucky Fried Chicken along with reintroducing the slogans
"Finger Lickin' Good" and "11 Secret Herbs and Spices." Forgive me while I indulge in some greasy childhood nostalgia as I ponder those slogans. The new logo sports bolder colors and a more defined graphic of the chain's late founder Colonel Harland Sanders. In addition to the crisper likeness, the good colonel has shed his white suit in favor of a red apron.It's great that KFC is getting back to its roots and letting folks know that the colonel was a real person, but did they really need to build what amounts to a corporate version of the
eighth wonder of the world? Gregg Dedrick, president of KFC Corp. had this to say: "If there are extraterrestrials in outer space, KFC wants to become their restaurant of choice. For now, we'll be very content satisfying the entire human population ... Besides, who knows if extraterrestrials even have fingers?" Umm, OK then.