The Great Brand Space Race

The Great Wall of China has for some 600 years reigned alone as the solitary example of Human Endeavor visible from outer space.

Recently it was joined in the Terrestrial Pantheon by the Col Sanders KFC logo.

The SOUTH SHALL RISE AGAIN! Shiver in fear you Yankee and Euroweenies!

KFC seeks 'alien customers'

by JOEL TAYLOR - Monday, November 13, 2006

For decades the Great Wall of China was rumored to be the only man-made structure visible from space but now it has been joined by a fast food chain.

KFC, with its new self-styled astrovertisement – a huge face of its founder Colonel Sanders – can now be seen by extraterrestrials peering down at Earth. Lucky old them.

The American food giant built the face in the Nevada desert, near Area 51, notorious for its UFO sightings, as part of a global rebranding.

It is made up of 65,000 tiles – 6,000 red, 14,000 white, 12,000 eggshell, 5,000 beige and 28,000 black – a n d was p u t together by a 50-strong team working round the clock for more than three weeks.

The face is 8,120 sq metres (87,500 sq ft) and nearly seven times the size of the London Eye. Photos of the logo were taken last week by a satellite circling Earth at an altitude of 490km (300 miles).

But, despite claims that KFC is 'boldly going where no brand has gone before', the advert may have been beaten in the space race.

Earlier this year lads magazine Maxim claimed its 30m (100ft) poster of Desperate Wives star Eva Longoria near Las Vegas could be seen on Google Earth.

And Coca-Cola also entered the space race with a 120m logo made from 70,000 bottles near the town of Arica, Chile.

Quite what ET might make of these adverts remains unknown. Launching the new KFC logo, president Graham Allen boasted: 'The Colonel is a global icon and we want everyone in the universe to see his new look.'

The new logo sees Colonel Sanders keep his famous string tie but replaces the white suit with a bright red apron.

It is only the third time since the chain was launched in 1952 that the logo has changed.

But the project nearly didn't happen when torrential rain forced designers to move the giant face from flatlands in Utah to Rachel, Nevada. Perhaps ET doesn't like KFC after all.

The Die is cast I would expect McDonalds to make their move in the near future.

Update:My buddy Gabe and I were talking about his at work on break and he came up with an interesting question.

Could the Faces on Mars be Ads? Are ETs Capitalists?

Been Here Before?

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