KFC goes all-in on the brand asset customers fondly remember carrying home.

When I was a kid, my family and I devoured bucket after bucket of KFC.

We didn’t eat much restaurant food, but KFC was one of my parents’ favorite cheats.

The cholesterol levels should probably have been fatal. Then again, so should half the stuff we did in the 1970s.

Yet here we are.

What I remember most isn’t the spicy and deliciously greasy chicken.

It’s the KFC bucket.

The giant illuminated bucket sign spinning above the restaurant seemed magnificent to a kid growing up in a small town. A striped paper bucket sitting in the middle of the kitchen table meant good feelings were about to be had.

And I enthusiastically participated, gorging myself like a famished small-town hyena.

That bucket has been around since 1957, when Pete Harman, Colonel Sanders’ first franchisee, introduced it as a practical way to sell family-sized meals.

The giant roadside bucket sign that became a landmark for generations of travellers came from another early franchisee named Dave Thomas, who later founded Wendy’s. Smart guy, Dave.

Almost seventy years later, KFC has decided the bucket deserves center stage again.

Its new global brand identity revolves around the bucket as the organizing idea for the entire system.

The bucket now shapes packaging, typography, restaurant environments, digital experiences, photography, motion design, and brand storytelling.

That’s a great decision.

Most brand refreshes begin with a logo.

KFC started with a memory.

The designers recognized that millions of people don’t merely recognize the bucket. They have a deep, long-standing and unique relationship with it.

A logo identifies.

A bucket packed dinner home like no other brand could do.

One is a symbol.

And the other participated in family rituals.

That’s a much stronger spot to build a brand.

The strongest products often create assets that become shorthand for the entire experience. Apple’s white earbuds did this. Tiffany has its blue box. Coca-Cola has its contour bottle.

KFC has a billion-dollar bucket.

And after nearly seventy years, they’re finally treating it like their most valuable brand asset.

Want to make your product irresistible? That’s what we do as product marketing consultants at Graphos Product, helping innovators turn need-driven ideas into market-ready successes.