Rob Lowe has been cast as Colonel Sanders, the face of Kentucky fried chicken, for the new KFC advertising campaign.
The former The West Wing star will promote the fast food chain’s new Zinger chicken sandwich, which KFC has spent nearly $80 million to create over the last two years.
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Rob Lowe comments, "My Grandfather was the head of the Ohio chapter of the National Restaurant Association in the 1960s and took me to meet Colonel Harland Sanders when I was a kid. I thought this would be a nice homage to both Colonel Sanders and to my Grandfather."
The new spicy Zinger is the company’s first fried chicken sandwich to be made daily by hand and in-house.
"We have been actually working on this for two years, we spent $80 million dollars upgrading our back house equipment and we spent the last six months re-training all of our staff on how to make a fried chicken sandwich fast because ultimately at lunch, we have to win on speed," commented Kevin Hochman, president and chief concept officer for KFC.
Lowe joins a list of other celebrities who have filled the colonel’s iconic shoes. Comedians Darrell Hammond, Jim Gaffigan, Norm Macdonald and actors George Hamilton and Billy Zane have also played the king of fried chicken.
KFC recently joined other fast-food restaurants in announcing plans earlier this month to stop using antibiotics important to human medicine in its chickens by the end of 2018.
"We share the public’s concern about … antimicrobial resistance," Hochman said in a statement.