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Why Japan Celebrates Christmas with KFC (2016)
- Black101 5y ago> How a fast-food marketing campaign turned into a widespread Yuletide tradition for millions. Christmas here too was a marketing campaign gone wrong.
- xu_ituairo 5y agoHow so? And where’s here?
- Black101 5y agoIn the USA... what a spending frenzy/waste it is... Not very eco-friendly.
- joejacket 5y agoMuch of the US retail market plans their whole year around Christmas. The percentage of their yearly income is from that season (for online retailers Black Friday, Cyber Monday) and is usually what gets them through the slower rest of the year.
- tpmx 5y agoPretty early case of marketing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas#Introduction_of_the_festival https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas#Introduction_of_the_...
- Black101 5y agoI'm talking about modern Christmas.. with Santa, gifts, decorations, etc...
- JasonFruit 5y agoThat's brilliant marketing: find a cultural event that doesn't have established traditions in an area, and fill the void with your product. I wonder what might be some cultural vacuums waiting to be filled in the United States... I suppose one example might be how big Cinco de Mayo is in the US, and its association with margaritas.
- mbg721 5y agoIf your marketing is already centered around a white-bearded Western guy in a suit, making the connection to Santa Claus seems almost natural in hindsight.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- fomine3 5y agoRed brand color and cloths are also a big win.
- smhost 5y agoMaybe micro-celebrity personality cults, where micro-communities develop a design language that only has meaning within their bubble, and they practice consumer rituals around their idol's birthday, for example.
- xwdv 5y agoWith Juneteenth becoming a fresh new national holiday in the United States, the day is now ripe for filling a marketing void. Perfect time for KFC to jump in.
- mkl95 5y ago> While millions do celebrate Christmas with KFC, others in Japan treat it as a romantic holiday similar to Valentine’s Day, and couples mark the occasion with dinner in upscale restaurants. For other Japanese families, Christmas is acknowledged but not celebrated in any particular way. It seems strange at first, but it makes sense when you consider only about 1.5% of Japanese people are Christians. Christmas as we know it in countries with a Christian majority doesn't mean much to them.
- chrisseaton 5y ago> It seems strange at first Why would it seem strange at first that a country that isn’t very Christian would not celebrate Christmas? Why would they?
- LeoPanthera 5y agoI'm pretty sure this is objectively not true. Christmas is only a religious holiday if you're already religious, and even then, you're ignoring the fact that today's "Christmas" is mostly an assemblage of traditions "borrowed" from other earlier religions. To a lot of people (and I tentatively claim most people, probably) Christmas is either a mostly or entirely secular holiday, celebrating family and the coming of lighter days after the winter solstice, the southern hemisphere notwithstanding.
- netrus 5y ago
- axaxs 5y agoIt's worth noting that KFC in other countries is often better than the greasy mess we typically find in the US. Same with McDonald's in my experience as well.
- izgzhen 5y agoCan’t agree more. Chinese branch of KFC/McDonalds not only has many delicious specials you can’t find outside China, even the basic fried chicken is much more juicy and flavorful. I can only find similar fried chicken in some very niche brands in US.
- leppr 5y agoIn this particular case though it is quite strange to me. Between katsu and tenpura, the Japanese are expert at fried food, in which they place peculiar importance on the lightness/crispiness. I tried KFC in Japan and it's mostly the same as anywhere else, a greasy mess.
- ryder9 5y ago> Between katsu and tenpura, the Japanese are expert at fried food the japanese aren't a hive mind
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dylan604 5y agopretty much everyone is familiar with frying food. howver, they all use different ingredients/spices/etc. that was always the KFC thing with their secret blend of spices. their original recipe isn't crunchy at all. so it's not really worth saying all fried food is the same so Japanese are expert where KFC (or any family table on a Sunday in the South) are not.
- kyawzazaw 5y agoI mean tempura is Portugese influenced so what's so strange about a modern influence of fried food?
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- krapp 5y agoAlso see: the Curse of the Colonel[0]. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_Colonel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_Colonel
- ypeterholmes 5y agoLOL "There, an assemblage of supporters yelled the players' names, and with every name, a fan resembling a member of the victorious team leaped from the bridge into the waiting canal. However, lacking a Caucasian person to imitate MVP Randy Bass, the rabid crowd seized a plastic statue of Colonel Sanders (like Bass, the Colonel had a beard and was not Japanese) from a nearby KFC and tossed it off the bridge as an effigy. According to the urban legend, this impulsive maneuver cost the team greatly, beginning the Curse of the Colonel, which states that the Tigers will not win the championship again until the statue is recovered. Subsequently, numerous attempts had been made to recover the statue, often as part of a variety TV show."
- dang 5y agoOne past thread: Japan Celebrates Christmas with KFC - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16002210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16002210 - Dec 2017 (9 comments)
- cheaprentalyeti 5y agoSomewhere in the past archives there's also a link to a good article on Col. Harlan Sanders, his life, and his struggles against the corporation that bought him out.
- physicsgraph 5y agoWikipedia has a good summary [0] and [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_KFC#Heublein_and_strained_relations_with_Sanders;_R._J._Reynolds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_KFC#Heublein_and_st... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Sanders#1930%E2%80%931952:_Later_career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Sanders#1930%E2%80%931...
- bitwize 5y agoChristmas in Japan was pitched by retailers as a fun way to spend your year-end bonus. Similarly, Valentine's Day was pitched by chocolate companies as a time to buy chocolates for your sweetheart. There are actually two such days: on Valentine's Day women give chocolates to their sweethearts, while on White Day (March 14), said sweethearts return the favor. Japanese people are starting to do things for Halloween. I am not sure what the marketing story is behind that.
- dcsan 5y agoStarting to do things for halloween? Halloween in Shibuya is probably the most crazy thing I've ever seen and it's not all foreigners!
- warent 5y agoThere's a great videographer on YouTube named Chris Broad who moved to Japan and has been living there for something like 10 years now. He does a show called "Abroad in Japan" He did a great video on this topic which is worth checking out (as well is all his other content for those interested in Japanese culture!) https://youtu.be/Pp6ggz_uwWE https://youtu.be/Pp6ggz_uwWE
- croes 5y agoSo Japan has Christmas traditions from KFC's marketing and the US and Europe from Coca Cola's marketing
- cunthorpe 5y agoYes people forget how Coca Cola molded Santa’s image.
- orangecat 5y agoThat's largely overstated: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-claus-that-refreshes/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-claus-that-refreshes/
- dopidopHN 5y agoAnd from the pagan tradition of the yul festival, only a few millennia prior.
- brudgers 5y ago“Those whacky Japanese” is a perennial category of bus-plunge journalism. It only seems odd if you don’t think about it much. Americans don’t think Honey Baked Ham or Boston Market on a holiday is weird though both are franchises and Boston Market was formerly a McDonalds brand. Try to book a table at Outback on Valentines (or even get seated at Applebee’s). And while Americans have good cause to celebrate Benito Juarez saving their bacon by stopping the French while Americans were busy killing each other from fixed positions in the Civil War, Taco Bell chalupa combo boxes with a forty ounce no ice Mountain Dew doesn’t really align with Cinco de Mayo any better than extra crispy at xmas. Every body is whacky.
- bbbbdddgbb 5y agoI'm American and I've never heard of Boston Market for Christmas, and it doesn't exist where I grew up, or in the region, and I would definitely think it was weird if someone wanted that for Christmas. I've never even heard of a franchise chain called Honey Baked. Are you from California or something? Why do people think Americans are a monolith? Where I'm from everything is closed on Christmas, even Wal-Mart, except the local Chinese takeout, so if you don't want home cooking, that's your one option. Now, living in a larger area, there are some other limited options but as a seventh generation European descended American I have never known a single family that celebrated Christmas by going to a franchise restaurant
- elif 5y agoThere are people in japan that don't go to KFC either. The meme-able phenomenon the OP is talking about is very real and certainly not regional or niche e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/9z7zd6/honey_baked_ham_pasadena_this_morning_at_8am/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/9z7zd6/honey_ba...
- sparrish 5y agoAn you try to prove that with a link to a Los Angeles reddit?
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- pelasaco 5y agoI have some Japanese friends that never could explain me this tradition. I always thought that it was introduced by some American navy/soldiers that while stationed in Japan wanted to celebrate Christmas, and the only western restaurant in the city/region that they could find, was a KFC.. I still think my theory/urban legend is way better ;)
- hulitu 5y agoAfter 2 atomic bombs you suddenly realize how cool the americans are.
- ad404b8a372f2b9 5y agoAnother Japanese Christmas classic is the song Christmas Eve by Tatsuro Yamashita, it was used in a romantic Japan Railways campaign in the 90s and it's still pretty popular.
- ezoe 5y agoThe real story is, most people in Japan don't bother to eat KFC on Christmas. I never did. It's just KFC spend money on ads in Christmas. It goes the same for Valentine's day(to gift chocolate) or Halloween(cosplay) or whatever foreign culture marketing people felt exotic and fresh to shove it to the general mass.
- glandium 5y agoThe real story is a ton of supermarkets have special chicken menus on Christmas.
- flakiness 5y agoAs a US-living Japanese, I was deeply disappointed when I stopped by a KFC on a Christmas day (not as planned, but just for curiosity.) Even though it's not for everyone as other comment suggests (KFC density in Japan isn't prepared for that.) It's still something. Here in US it's nothing! Note that it's not that common to see roast chicken in grocery stores in Japan. So KFC isn't the worst option if you crave chicken for some reason.
- renox 5y agoThat's funny: in my family we have a similar tradition for Pâques : when I was young my mother would spend a lot of time cooking but now we usually order sushi: we enjoys more the family reunion without having to spend half a day (at least) cooking..