KFC started serving freshly ground coffee across China from 2016 and soon expanded it to 4600 stores, but most people still didn't believe a fast food restaurant that sells fried chicken and congee was truly serious about coffee. With the ambition to overtake Starbucks to become the biggest coffee chain nationwide, KFC needed to convince people that the coffee they serve is the real deal - in a KFC way.

Coffee drinkers in China just can’t take coffee from a chicken restaurant seriously. We needed to prove that Colonel Sanders, the world's #1 fried chicken salesman put just as much care into his coffee as his chicken. So we gave the average coffee cup a makeover and turned it into “The Colonel’s Coffee Bucket,” and topped it off spectacularly with the “Chicken Drumstick Stir Stick.” Each cup was covered with crafted words of wisdom from The Colonel himself, educating coffee drinkers about the quality of his coffee. We called these “Colonel-isms,” turning his coffee cups into his very own promotional channel, elevating his coffee to a status symbol and inspiring his coffee drinkers to walk confidently down the street, Coffee Buckets in hand.