As you may have heard - it’s been blogged a lot - KFC has created the “world’s first brand visible from space”; a 87 500 sq ft Colonel Sanders in the Area 51 desert. Which is great if you live on the ISS!

The stunt is part of the campaign to launch their updated logo: the Colonel had his double-breasted suit replaced and is now wearing an apron. Updated restaurant designs, advertising, point-of-sale and more to come, according to the KFC press release.

One can wonder if the giant logo is such a good idea.

The press release informs us that the change “updates one of the most recognized, respected and beloved brand icons in the world”, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the internal memo put this forth as something that would “increase employee pride” as well.

Still, tomorrow, when the publicity is forgotten, the critics will still be there among customers, employees and others, thinking and talking about how all this money could have been better spent on things like keeping the restaurants clean, increasing salaries or making sure suppliers aren’t, as some of their critics claim, torturing chickens.

Wheather or not these are realistic alternatives to the giant logo (with 14 000 restaurants in 80 countries the money would spread pretty thin) the thoughts and the talking will be there. KFC comes out as a company prioritizing publicity fireworks and logo tweaking instead of addressing real problems. And that’s bad for the KFC brand.