When KFC sales hit a lean patch, Colonel Sanders came up with a brilliant advertising idea.
He got in touch with the Pope and asked the pontiff whether he could change the words of the Lord’s Prayer from “Give us this day a daily bread” to “Give us this day a daily chicken.”
“I can’t possibly do that,” said the Pope.
“Not even for 100,000 dollars?” asked the Colonel.
“No, not for 100,000 dollars,” replied the Pope.
Six months on and KFC sales were declining still further. The Colonel was getting desperate and made another call to the Pope. This time he offered 500,000 dollars for the words of the Lord’s Prayer to be changed to “Give us this day a daily chicken.”
Again the Pope refused, “I can’t possibly change the wording of the Lord’s Prayer from bread to chicken,” he repeated.
Another 6 months and KFC sales had reached an all time low. The company was in danger of going out of business. Colonel Sanders made one last attempt to persuade the Pope to change the wording of the Lord’s Prayer.
“I’ll donate 50 million dollars to the Vatican if you change the word ‘bread’ to ‘chicken’ in the Lord’s Prayers.”
“That’s a lot of money,” conceded the Pope.
“So you’ll do it?”
“I’ll have to discuss it with the cardinals.”
So the Pope called a meeting of the cardinals. He began, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is, KFC is going to donate 50 million dollars to Vatican. The bad news is, we lost the Wonder Bread account.”