© 1999 KFC

Davenport holds Colonel Sanders in the palm of his hand.

While other five-year-olds were spellbound by cartoons, Terry Davenport was only interested in the commercials that interrupted them. According to his parents, Davenport would stop whatever he was doing when a commercial came on and watch the entire advertisement before resuming play.

Davenport, intrigued by TV ads as a little boy, is today Chief Concept Officer and Chief Marketing Officer of Kentucky Fried Chicken USA in Louisville, Ky.

One of the catalysts that propelled Davenport from childhood fascination with the world of advertising to his top-of-the-ladder achievement was his FSU education that began in art, not advertising. Davenport (B'80) entered Ferris State with the intention of becoming a commercial artist and illustrator, a goal he could reach through the University's two-year Commercial Art program. But during those two years, he realized there was much more to his chosen field.

He used that degree as a stepping stone to the broader career of communications and returned to pursue a double major of Advertising and Marketing.

"The associate degree program gave me time to think about my career choice," said Davenport. While a Ferris student, Davenport put his artistic abilities to work for the University, designing media guides for the Sports Information department and creating orientation materials and other school literature. His Hockey Media Guide and his New Student Orientation Series earned national design awards.

The design for which Davenport is best remembered at Ferris State is the University's Bulldog mascot. When his father, Dean Davenport, then athletic director, expressed the need for a more aggressive-looking Bulldog, Terry turned the mild-mannered pup into the ferocious, spiked-collared image that is representing Ferris still 20 years later.

Before graduating from FSU, Davenport entered an advertising contest that landed him a $12,500 graduate-school scholarship to Northwestern University.

From there, Davenport began his ascent up through some of America's best-known companies - Pizza Hut, Arby's, Hot 'N Now, Boston Market, and the PepsiCo spinoff, Tricon, which is the parent company of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Anyone who watches television has seen Davenport's creativity at work. With his marketing team, Davenport developed the animated version of Colonel Sanders, KFC's founder. Sales are up tremendously since the character was introduced, notes Dean Davenport.

"Terry has a knack for knowing what appeals to the audience he's targeting," his father said. "He's understood what advertising is all about ever since he was a boy, when he would stop in the middle of whatever he was doing just to listen to a commercial."

Editor's Note: Some of Terry's Bulldog drafts were featured in the spring '99 issue of Crimson and Gold.