Ad produced by:
KFC
This KFC ad arrives with the swagger of a celebrity strolling past a wall of look-alikes. The top half is a grid of chicken-shop storefronts, each one a lovingly shameless knockoff: AFC, BFC, CFC, DFC, EFC… a whole alphabet soup of “definitely-not-KFC” brands wearing suspiciously familiar colors, stripes, and fried-chicken bravado. It’s as if the Colonel wandered into the multiverse and discovered 26 alternate realities all trying to deep-fry his identity.
Beneath the collage, KFC drops the mic with a single line: “Guys, we’re flattered.”
Why it works: the humor blooms from confidence, not confrontation. Instead of calling out imitators with corporate thunder, KFC grins and treats the whole thing like an accidental fan club. The ad celebrates its own cultural footprint by highlighting the sheer volume of flattery disguised as competition. It’s a playful flex: we didn’t make these places, but we definitely inspired them.
The joke also taps into a shared cultural moment. Everyone has walked past one of these not-quite-KFC joints and done a double take. The ad bottles that déjà vu and turns it into brand storytelling. It winks, gently roasts its copycats, and reminds you that imitation may be the sincerest form of advertising.