From a Roadside Station in Kentucky to a Christmas Tradition in Japan: The Story of KFC

Before there was a bucket, a logo or a single franchise, there was a man with a recipe and a gas station.

Harland Sanders, born in 1890, developed his chicken recipe over many years. He first served it at the service station he opened in Corbin, Kentucky, in 1929. Later he bought the motel across the street, which had a 142-seat restaurant, and the Harland Sanders Court and Cafe grew popular through the 1930s. The state's governor made him an honorary Kentucky Colonel, and that is where the title "Colonel Sanders" comes from.

His blend of 11 herbs and spices was something he mixed by hand. In 1939, the writer Duncan Hines endorsed the restaurant, which brought it national attention.

When the Highway Moved On

Then came a setback. Gas rationing during the Second World War forced the restaurant to close for a time, and it reopened after the war. Later, highway plans bypassed Corbin, which cut off the traffic his business depended on. Sanders sold his motel for $75,000, less than half its value.

At an age when many people retire, he had a recipe, a reputation and a choice to make.

The Handshake That Created a Chain

In 1952, Sanders signed his first franchise with Pete Harman in Salt Lake City, Utah. In 1955, he incorporated the company and registered the name Kentucky Fried Chicken. Franchisees paid him a nickel for each chicken sold.

The model worked. By 1963, he had signed more than 600 franchises in the United States and Canada.

Selling the Company, Keeping the Face

In 1964, Sanders sold his interest to investors led by John Y. Brown Jr. and Jack Massey, and stayed on as the company's spokesman. Under the new owners, the business moved to a fast-food, take-out model, and opened more than 1,500 outlets by about 1967.

Ownership then changed hands several times:

• 1969: The company went public.

• 1971: It merged with Heublein Inc.

• 1982: R.J. Reynolds Industries acquired Heublein and KFC.

• 1986: PepsiCo bought KFC from Reynolds.

• 1991: The company was renamed KFC Corporation.

• 1997: PepsiCo spun off its restaurants into Tricon Global Restaurants, which also owns Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.

Sanders himself died in 1980, seven months after being diagnosed with leukemia. His body lay in state in the Kentucky State Capitol Rotunda.

Going Global

KFC opened its first restaurant in China in 1987, and its first in Moscow in 1995. By 1997, KFC North America and its franchisees operated about 10,200 restaurants in 79 countries, with half in the United States and Canada. These figures are from the late 1990s, so today's numbers will be different.

The Marketing Strategy: Turning Chicken Into a Ritual

KFC's most famous marketing story comes from Japan.

The first KFC in Japan opened in Nagoya in November 1970. Its manager, Takeshi Okawara, started a one-store campaign to boost sales, selling a party bucket of chicken at Christmas. The company's version is that he had the idea after overhearing a foreigner say they missed eating turkey at Christmas, though the account presents that as the company line, not a confirmed fact. The party bucket went national in 1974 under the slogan "ケンタッキーはクリスマス！", which means "Kentucky is Christmas!"

The idea suited its setting. Christmas is not a national holiday in Japan, and the country has few Christian traditions around it, which left room for a new custom. Today, orders open in early November, queues form outside KFC stores on 25 December, and one report puts the pre-booked party box, with eight pieces of chicken, a meat gratin and a cake, at ¥4,990. One article says Christmas accounts for "apparently a third" of KFC's yearly sales, but it gives no source, so treat that as unconfirmed.

Elsewhere, KFC's marketing leans on the same ingredients that Sanders started with:

• A face people know. The Colonel became the brand's emblem. In the mid-1990s KFC introduced a new logo featuring him, along with new packaging and the return of the bucket.

• A slogan from the kitchen. "Finger-lickin' good" became one of the company's best-known lines.

• Control of the message. In 1996, KFC settled a seven-year franchisee dispute by giving franchisees permanent territorial protection, in exchange for more direct control over advertising and public relations.

What KFC Teaches Us

The KFC story is easy to read as a tale of a recipe. It is really about three things: a founder who started again when the road moved away from him, a franchise model that spread the idea faster than one man could, and a marketer in Nagoya who understood that a product becomes a brand when it becomes part of someone's calendar.

Sanders never saw Japan's Christmas queues. But the logic behind them began in that Corbin gas station: give people something worth coming back for.