Fried chicken chain KFC resurrects Colonel Sanders for ads

[webfact]

Fried chicken chain KFC resurrects Colonel Sanders for ads

NEW YORK (AP) — KFC is bringing back Colonel Sanders as the fried chicken chain seeks to refresh its image by harkening back to its past.

Sanders, who founded KFC, will be played by "Saturday Night Live" alumnus Darrell Hammond in TV commercials. The real Colonel Harland Sanders died nearly 35 years ago, and KFC hasn't featured him in TV ads for about 20 years.

KFC also plans to redesign its restaurants with light fixtures shaped like chicken buckets and quotes from Colonel Sanders hanging on the wall.

For customers that don't know who Colonel Sanders is, KFC is giving them an online history lesson. At ColonelSanders.com, the fast food chain gives details about Colonel Sanders' past, including that he dropped out of school in the sixth grade. There's also a video game on the site featuring Sanders, who was born in 1890.

It's apparently a good time to be a marketing icon for a fast-food chain. The resurrection of Colonel Sanders comes a couple of weeks after rival McDonald's said it would bring back its classic character, the Hamburglar, to TV ads. And Burger King's creepy "King" character also made a cameo appearance at the boxing match between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquaio earlier this month.

KFC is owned by Louisville, Kentucky-based Yum Brands Inc., which also owns Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-05-21

[NickJ]

Just wish Yum Co. Would bring Taco Bell to Thailand......

[Suradit69]

The real Colonel Harland Sanders died nearly 35 years ago, and KFC hasn't featured him in TV ads for about 20 years.

Did no one at the ad agency notice that "the real" Colonel was less chatty than usual during the last 15 years he was doing the ads?

[4u2mad]

Just wish Yum Co. Would bring Taco Bell to Thailand......

Yes please. I'd be their bestist customer

[zydeco]

Just wish Yum Co. Would bring Taco Bell to Thailand......

This is perhaps the most important post ever to appear on Thaivisa.

[Bangkok Barry]

I met a Col. Sanders look-alike a few years ago in Dubai.We were staying at the same hotel, and he was in Dubai to promote the company. He was an absolute dead ringer for the original and told me he actually knew the Colonel (maybe true, maybe not). I wish I'd have had my photo taken with him. Can you imagine the reaction of the young ladies in Thailand to seeing me with KFC. Would have done me no harm at all

[Publicus]

Colonel Sanders was a retail fast food visionary who also was prominent in Democratic party politics, appearing for only cameo appearances at Democratic national conventions after having become famous and publicly very well known.

It will be good regardless to see his image again and to see the KFC entrepreneur story posted inside KFC restaurants, something I noticed already had been occurring in the PRChina while I was there not long ago and which was of great interest to the many PRChinese who swarm KFC restaurants throughout the PRC.

Perhaps the Republican party can counter this with the ghost of another retail food visionary Frank Perdue of the highly popular Perdue chickens given he was a notorious anti union Republican and far right winger who once consulted with Mafia boss Paul Castellano Sr. to tough off a union's effort to represent workers at Perdue Farms Inc.

Maybe the union hater Gov Scott Walker of Wisconsin could wear a Frank Perdue mask at next year's Republican national convention and with (John) Wayne LaPierre also use an AK-47 to shoot up KFC chicken to a roaring standing O by the thousands of convention delegates.

[sdanielmcev]

Since it was brought up, even though way off topic, and my apologies. Harlan Sanders was a conservative Southern Democrat. Can't believe these in accuracies are allowed to stand.

[sdanielmcev]

Colonel Sanders was a retail fast food visionary who also was prominent in Democratic party politics, appearing for only cameo appearances at Democratic national conventions after having become famous and publicly very well known.

It will be good regardless to see his image again and to see the KFC entrepreneur story posted inside KFC restaurants, something I noticed already had been occurring in the PRChina while I was there not long ago and which was of great interest to the many PRChinese who swarm KFC restaurants throughout the PRC.

Perhaps the Republican party can counter this with the ghost of another retail food visionary Frank Perdue of the highly popular Perdue chickens given he was a notorious anti union Republican and far right winger who once consulted with Mafia boss Paul Castellano Sr. to tough off a union's effort to represent workers at Perdue Farms Inc.

Maybe the union hater Gov Scott Walker of Wisconsin could wear a Frank Perdue mask at next year's Republican national convention and with (John) Wayne LaPierre also use an AK-47 to shoot up KFC chicken to a roaring standing O by the thousands of convention delegates.

Now that is a troll post. Looking for an argument.

[MaxYakov]

Had he been in cryogenic suspension and they resurrected him? Why didn't this great scientific achievement get wider press?

[JLCrab]

Darrell Hammond did (does?) a devastating Bill Clinton routine:

[impulse]

Jeez. What a disappointment.

Reading the headline, I though they finally perfected human cloning... Or at least cryogenic reanimation.