Which Logo is Tastier? KFC VS. McDonald's #PhilippineRestaurantMenu
It is not the advertising, but logos that helps mostly to recognize the fast food chains.
Kentucky Fried Chicken was established by Colonel Harland Sanders in 1952. It is him who one can see on the logo already for 50 years. There were five changes of the KFC’s logo during half of the decade. The last logo that was appeared in year 2006 can be voted as the best among previous four.
Sanders looks even friendlier and younger. His white suit was changed for a red cook’s apron, the colors are bolder and the background is red and matches with Colonel’s rep apron. It is interesting to mention that the logo has its own symbolism. It symbolizes the “home-style culinary heritage” of the brand and remind customers that KFC chicken is prepared by hand, just like Colonel Sanders prepared it 50 years ago. Graham Allan, president of Yum’s international restaurant division, said many people don’t realize that Sanders existed and started the company on his own. Considering the fact that now Sanders is in an apron, Gregg Dedrick, president of KFC’s U.S. division says: “This change gives us a chance not only to make sure we stay relevant but also communicates to customers the realness of Colonel Sanders and the fact that he was a chef.”
As one can see the main color of KFC logo is red – it appears both as on the font of the logo and on the Sanders' apron. It is well known that the red color evokes hunger, that is one of the main reasons why one chooses KFC as the place to satisfy hunger.
As for McDonald’s the interesting fact about their logo is that the first one that appeared on the restaurant established in 1937, in Southern California, didn’t have any connection with well-known arches. It had more likely the idea of KFC’s logo – the chef character named “Speedy” was portrayed on it. And only in the year 1953 the arches were introduced.
Since then not many changes appeared on the McDonald’s logo presenting – two yellow arches with the red font were usual for more than fifty years. In 2007, Tired of being held up as an example of corporate evil and greed, the fast food chain has been striking out at critics with a series of environmental and social initiatives designed to prove that it cares and has decided to change the usual red font for the green one. Many people did not like this change saying that now McDonald's looks better, but still the food is junk. But despite this, after McDonald’s went greener, the sales in Europe and US raised dramatically.
Space doesn’t need fast food, people do.
It can be said that KFC positioned itself as fast-food for everyone, friendly for business people and for the younger generations. In 2006 KFC launched Global ReImage an 87,500 Square-Foot KFC logo in Area 51, in Nevada which can be seen from space.
The question stands, what was the point of this sort of advertising campaign, if usual customers will not ever see it or even know about it. It can be assumed that maybe KFC wanted to have customers among aliens, because it is evident that such campaign will not probably increase the amount of customers among people who don’t fly into space every day.
In contrast to KFC, McDonald’s works hard for the target audience. Over the years, McDonalds added tiny details to the logo to communicate with different social classes and nationalities. The variant of ‘M’ where the edges are sharper focuses on a more solid, business-like and corporate character.
The arches are wider, have the brighter yellow color and the imitation of drawing and express all the elements that contribute to the attempted young-spirited vision. Also, the wider arches used in when advertising McDonald’s on the road as a street/road sign, drivers could see it more easily. Moreover the color also "pays attention" to the audience because this color symbolizes warmth and happiness.
McDonald’s tries to please the eyes of customers from different countries. For example, the ‘M’ has a maple leaf in the middle and the slogan “I’m lovin’ it” and is translated in Canadian French.
In the German variant, the arches are more sharp probably because of Germans’ orientation towards professionalism, stability and perfectionism.
Since its establishment, every restaurant tried to adapt to the particularities and cultural differences across the world and now following the society and market trends the logo got its green font.
“Historic values” can’t be the main values in the market business.
McDonald’s was always working and still works for target audience and market trends. In contrast KFC is more passionate about the history, or to be more precise, the ‘father’ of the chain, so that they show Colonel Sanders even from space, but this strategy will never raise their sales. In-turn, McDonald's is the world's first fast-food and beverage brand in more than 120 countries around the world and more than 30,000 branches worldwide. According to the annual report of the year 2010, the average number of customers served every day McDonald's is 64 million, that's twice the number when compared to KFC. Maybe if KFC begins to think more about their target audience and pays less attention to keeping ‘family values’ it could become as desirable as McDonalds.
Source: Alexandra Muravyeva. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alexandra-muravyeva/46/549/a99 and Published-Articles.com
