KFC didn't have a brand problem, it had a product perception problem. People had stopped thinking about how good the chicken actually tasted, and the Colonel had become a cartoon instead of the obsessive, relentless founder he actually was. My job was to find the tension worth pulling on.

​

I started by going back to the origin - not the brand mythology, but the actual man.  We’d only seen a tiny slice of who Colonel Sanders was in advertising - a dancing mascot, a bobblehead, Reba McEntire in a mustache (Never forget!). But when we dug into the real Colonel, we found something much more interesting - an obsessive founder with a story worth telling.

The Colonel spent decades perfecting a recipe he believed in completely. That obsession was the strategy. If we could make people feel that obsession, the product would follow. I pushed the team toward reintroducing him not as a mascot but a "chefprenuer". From there I needed a way to make people feel the obsession, not just see it. That's when we landed on the hunt. Hide the 11 herbs and spices in the ad. Make finding them a real thing people could chase. The first clue was tattooed on chef Matty Matheson. That detail mattered to me strategically. It had to be real. Since this bold first step, the brand has reversed a multi-year sales decline!