We recommitted KFC to everything that made it so special in the first place, including its founder, Colonel Sanders, and his values.

For him, every occasion was an opportunity to sell fried chicken. He was a champion for home-cooked meals. His chicken was proudly “Finger Lickin’ Good.” He had a relentless passion for quality and doing things “the Hard Way.” And if he didn’t like your gravy, or so they say, he would throw it on the floor.

In many ways, he was an ahead-of-his-time marketer: he made countless TV, radio, and print ads; appeared on game shows; sponsored a mandolin band; made Christmas albums; and even built a KFC–themed amusement-park ride. He would do anything and everything to promote KFC.

So to turn things around, we brought back the the world’s greatest chicken salesman—the Colonel himself—infusing his likeness and spirit across every one of the brand’s touchpoints.

No one man could fill the Colonel’s shoes, so on TV, the Colonel was portrayed by a rotating cast of celebrities including Billy Zane, Rob Lowe, and our first ever female Colonel, country music superstar Reba McEntire. Each new Colonel gave us something newsworthy to share with both celebrity-focused outlets and mass media.

The Colonel would do anything and everything to sell KFC, so while our rotating celebrity Colonels drove mass coverage, a series of non-traditional executions helped drive coverage for KFC among specific niche audiences.

For example, the launch of KFC’s eStore earned rave reviews among fashion publications like GQ, Esquire, and Women’s Wear Daily. The VR training game got tech and gaming outlets to talk about KFC and the Colonel. And by launching KFC’s Zinger chicken sandwich into space, we earned coverage in the most unlikely of places, like Space.com and the New York Times science section.

Thanks to this combination of traditional and non-traditional executions, KFC and the Colonel have been talked about all throughout 2017, appearing everywhere everywhere from the Today Show and the Atlantic to Vice and the front page of Reddit.

Eater named KFC 2017’s "#Brand of the Year" and the Colonel and the campaign have been referenced organically by shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm and Broad City.

Finally, KFC is back in pop culture with over 14 billion earned impressions in 2017 alone, compared to 8.8 billion in 2016 and 7 billion in 2015.

In KFC’s brand tracker, consideration, recommendation, and penetration have all increased in the last year, and food taste and quality metrics are the highest they’ve been in an over a year.

Best of all, the campaign has helped drive 13 consecutive quarters of sales growth. For Kentucky Fried Chicken, things are once again Finger Lickin' Good.