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Burger King

Burger King Is Starting a Fast Food Fight With KFC (Which Turned Colonel Sanders Into Colonel RoboCop?)

By
Laura Stampler/TIME
Laura Stampler/TIME
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By
Laura Stampler/TIME
Laura Stampler/TIME
Down Arrow Button Icon
February 21, 2019, 2:46 PM ET
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NurPhoto NurPhoto via Getty Images

Always hankering to start a fast food fight, Burger King launched an ad campaign for its new flame-grilled chicken sandwich Thursday that revolves around roasting competitor KFC.

“When it comes to flame grillin’, a King always outranks a Colonel,” said Burger King’s newly dubbed KFG (King of Flame Grilling), wearing a white suit straight out of Colonel Sandwich’s closet, in a 26-second YouTube video.

it’s the K.F.G., y’all. yeah, the king of flame-grilling, and he’s introducing his new flame-grilled chicken sandwich. it’s flame-grilled good! pic.twitter.com/TuLMgnlxdr

— Burger King (@BurgerKing) February 21, 2019

“We have over 60 years of grilling expertise under our belt,” Chris Finazzo, President of Burger King Corporation’s North American business, said in a statement. “We wanted to celebrate this expertise and show that when it comes to flame-grilling, we ‘reign’ over the competition.”

You can watch the full ad for the $4.99 sandwich below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prOCGIXB0Ws

And although it might be jarring to see Burger King’s plastic mascot jam his (somehow human) hands through the white suit, it’s good to know that some fictional fast-food leader is getting some wear out of the ensemble considering that KFC’s new ad campaign has turned Colonel Sanders into Colonel… RoboCop. (Yes, really.)

https://twitter.com/kfc/status/1098621661232807937

For those who thought that the Colonel RoboCop ad campaign, which AdAge reports will start airing on Feb. 24, is a sign that the reboot RoboCop Returns will be coming soon to a theater near you, we hate to inform that that’s probably not the case. The movie’s IMDB page has yet to list a release date or cast.

Whether Colonel RoboCop will slap back at the KFG is still unknown. But considering Burger King’s history of trolling competitors, may have more whoppers in store.

Earlier this month, Burger King Sweden trolled McDonald’s with an offering of Big Mac-themed sandwiches advertised with tag lines including: “Like a Big Mac, But Actually Big”, “Kind of Like a Big Mac But Juicier and Tastier”, and “Big Mac-ish But Flame-Grilled of Course.”

In a similar vein, Burger King offered American customers a one cent Whopper if they ordered it on the app within 600 feet of a McDonald’s, and it briefly launched a Double Quarter Pound King Sandwich to take on McDonald’s Double Quarter Pounder.

how do you order a Whopper sandwich for a penny “at” McDonald’s? here’s how. #WhopperDetour https://t.co/lAgbGO0bL0 pic.twitter.com/ANXIy6Yu9I

— Burger King (@BurgerKing) December 4, 2018

But in spite of Burger King’s swat at KFC, that is a small side of mashed potatoes to the true chicken king. As Ad Age points out, while KFC had $4.4 billion in sales in 2017, Chick-fil-A’s sales in the same period exceeded $9 billion.

 

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By Laura Stampler/TIME
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