Actor and comedian Rob Riggle is the latest face of KFC in four TV commercials set to begin airing Thursday featuring a football focus. The brand today announced its Kentucky Buckets football team, complete with their red-and-white jerseys, string ties and fried chicken-adorned white helmets. “To get buckets of delicious chicken across the goal line and in front of millions of fans on football Sundays”.
Advertisement
KFC seems to be appointing new Colonels at breakneck speed these days: Since resurrecting the iconic character in mid-2015, the chain has cycled through actors Darrell Hammond, Norm Macdonald, and Jim Gaffigan.
The brand’s latest shtick is the Colonel’s questionable quest to launch Kentucky’s first professional football team, “the Buckets”. In other striking biographical similarities, Riggle hails from Louisville, KY, the home of KFC since 1966.
“We have to stay unexpected because we don’t want to fall into a formula where people just go, ‘Oh there’s another Colonel, ‘” Hochman said in an earlier interview. “It doesn’t get any more real than that”. KFC isn’t an official restaurant sponsor, though.
When W+K Portland introduced George Hamilton as KFC’s new “Extra Crispy Colonel” back in June it was obvious that he wouldn’t be around for long. Though Riggle and his Buckets will forgo any on field action and instead appear in a series of promos with Cooper Manning during the one-hour program hosted by Charissa Thompson with analysts Colin Cowherd, Dave Wannstedt and Charles Tillman.
Advertisement
Is having this many Colonels on the payroll actually boosting sales for the chicken chain? KFC Corporation is a subsidiary of Yum!
