Different day, more-or-less-the-same Colonel Sanders I don't know if the folks at Gawker spend their off-hours at their local KFC, but it was kind of surprising to see they spent precious time in between Lindsay Lohan sightings yesterday to post something about the proposed celebrity makeover of Colonel Sanders. The Louisville Courier-Journal, which I assume should know about such things, says that the Yum Brands chain (sorry, on principle I refuse to add exclamation points into corporate names) has filed a trademark application for a new-look Sanders, though a spokesperson says it hasn’t committed to the makeover. Anyway, take a good look at it, and tell us, does this Col. Sanders (at left), really differ enough from the old one (at right) in any significant way? The motive, supposedly, is to make him look younger, but what I see here is an advertising icon re-created by committee—and the faction that was uncomfortable with change won. Why this would sell more chicken is puzzling. —Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

July 7, 2006 in KFC | Permalink

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Everything about KFC sucks. The food, the advertising and their new logo. They are a perfect example of someone doing everything but solving their real problems: shitty food, shittier advertising and a moronic corporate culture.

Posted by: pete best | Jul 7, 2006 11:09:38 AM

Sure, they got rid of his double chin, plus they put an apron on the man. An apron will make anyone lose 10 years, just look at Julia Chil....nevermind

Posted by: mike | Jul 7, 2006 11:19:34 AM

Couldn't you see the the new Colonel as a rotoscoped Tom Arnold? Only a few small adjustments necessary.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000792/

Posted by: Peter Kim | Jul 7, 2006 11:29:30 AM

Good to see he still has one leg shorter than the other, so he stands off-kilter like some kind of mountain goat.

Posted by: CorruptedJournalist | Jul 7, 2006 11:39:23 AM

I don't think that an apron he's wearing; it's a colostomy bag holder.

Posted by: Bob | Jul 7, 2006 11:59:30 AM

hmm... the apron/colostomy bag screams "I'm hip and young" somehow I guess. That, or the slightly more wavy hair.

Posted by: Josh | Jul 7, 2006 12:05:48 PM

I have a thought — stop using a drawing of a dead guy as your logo. Unless you're serving up heaping helpings of dead guy in buckets, just move on. And for the love of god, never have him do the cabbage patch ever, ever again. Do you remember that? Of course, you do. It will probably be the last thing that pops into all our brains the flash second before we die. "Go colonel! Go colonel!"

Posted by: thatguy | Jul 7, 2006 2:48:58 PM

right on, thatguy... and i'll raise you a "ambiguously racist southern stereotypes just don't sell fried chicken like they used to."

Posted by: del ruby | Jul 7, 2006 4:14:10 PM

Okay, I'll go out on a limb here and say I like it. I think they just gave him a little refresher without walking completely away from their brand equity. The apron and the changes to the style of illustration make him seem more friendly and a little less formal. But I never eat at KFC so maybe I'm the wrong audience.

Posted by: Jerry | Jul 7, 2006 4:58:46 PM

I think the updated colors make the design a lot fresher... but they could have changed the colors in the old look for about the same effect.
KFC has good chicken pie... most of their resturaunts are just nasty though

Posted by: kathryn | Jul 7, 2006 10:18:18 PM

remember way back when PepsiCo owned KFC and they were the 1st USA fast food to break into China market? Col. Sanders suddenly developed the horizontal lines for eyes (more Asian-like) instead of the circular eyes (of a caucasian). Find a sample of that, interesting. I recall reading how chicken was a natural fast food product intro for the Chinese. - not that I'm saying fast food is natural . . .

Posted by: bigbonton | Jul 8, 2006 9:52:52 AM

I used to like Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Then the corporation must've thought "Kentucky" wasn't cool and "fried" conjures up images of frying and "chicken" is so limiting since so few folks like it for breakfast. So they changed the name to KFC, which I confused with K of C, the Knights of Columbus.
Hiding your original name I guess is pretty old. IHOP is painful, though, compared to International House of Pancakes. But IBM is pleasant relief for International Business Machines and AT&T for American Telephone and Telegraph and even good ole WPP for Wired Products and Plastics.

Posted by: K of C | Jul 9, 2006 4:33:52 PM

Fark.com ran a photoshop contest on the Colonel's new look. The 2nd-place entry was one that pointed out how similar this is to the "Obey Giant" art.

Posted by: Ben | Jul 10, 2006 3:04:56 AM

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