KFC has another new Colonel Sanders.
Louisville, Ky.-based KFC said Monday that comedian Norm Macdonald would wear the white suit as the “Real Colonel” in a series of ads promoting the quick-service chain’s $20 Family Fill Up meal.
Macdonald will take the role of Sanders only three months after KFC brought back its iconic founder and spokesman in a series of ads starring fellow Saturday Night Live alum Darrell Hammond.
“Other than not quite looking like him, his voice being different and his inability to cook the world’s best chicken, we thought Norm was the perfect choice to play the Real Colonel,” KFC chief marketing officer Kevin Hochman said in a statement. “I think the fans will agree.”
The first ad depicts a television showing the first ad with Hammond as Sanders, before Macdonald, watching from his desk, stands up and says, “Hey, that’s not the real Colonel Sanders! I’m the real Colonel Sanders!”
“They can’t just grab some super-funny Hollywood actor, throw a white suit on him and try to pass him off as the real Colonel Sanders,” Macdonald says in another ad, which features him wearing long underwear, but then quickly donning more parts of the white suit.
The latest ads continue to pay homage to KFC’s history, which started this spring with the original ads and included a website, www.colonelsanders.com, known as The Hall of Colonels, to re-familiarize consumers with the iconic founder.
“For the first ads, we rebooted things that made Kentucky Fried Chicken the most favorite chicken brand in the world,” Hochman said. “We brought back the Colonel’s iconic office, his white stretch limo and the children’s mandolin band he outfitted with instruments, and white Colonel suits to create authentic Kentucky bluegrass music. And the new set of ads are more of that same homage to the things that made Kentucky Fried Chicken such an important part of American families.”
Macdonald said: “I was blown away when I learned that Colonel Sanders didn’t even start KFC until he was 65. That’s a whole lot of legend to fit into a couple of days, and it takes a strong work ethic, the kind you don’t see every day, to do what he did. He never gave up, never accepted less than the best and never held back an opinion. Plus, he looks great in white.”
KFC brought the Sanders character back in May as part of a massive rebranding fueled by a $185 million, multi-year investment from parent company Yum! Brands Inc. The effort includes remodeling 70 percent of its 4,300 U.S. locations in three years. The chain’s new look features Sanders more heavily in the design.
The fall campaign will feature the Family Fill Up meal, a family-sized version of the $5 Fill Up, priced at $20. The meal includes eight pieces of chicken, large coleslaw, four biscuits, mashed potatoes and gravy.
Contact Jonathan Maze at [email protected].
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