With lines around the block and significant sales during the Christmas season, Kentucky Fried Chicken has become a huge hit in Japan.
Fox News claims that Japanese YouTuber Yoko Ishii provided them with a behind-the-scenes look at how the fast-food restaurant evolved over the previous 50 years into a holiday phenomenon.
During the months leading up to Christmas, KFC Japan posts its highest yearly sales numbers. According to the company’s website, December 24 was the chain’s “busiest day of the year — 10 times busier than KFC Japan’s annual average.”
Ishii asserted that she and her husband had each witnessed the lengthy lines in their hometown of Fukuoka on separate occasions.
“I was walking home, and I saw KFC inside of the big [train] station nearby, and I saw the line,” Ishii said in an interview with Fox News. “I was wondering, ‘What’s happening?’”
“I realized that they were lined up for Kentucky for Christmas,” she added.
Japan was the first country where the American restaurant chain KFC opened a location. It debuted its first holiday-themed advertising campaign four years later.
Ishii asserted that she was aware of Kentucky for Christmas because she was exposed to the tagline as a child while watching television.
According to KFC’s website, the campaign was motivated by an unidentified foreigner who visited a KFC restaurant on Christmas Day in Tokyo at some point in the early 1970s.
“I can’t get turkey in Japan, so I have no choice but to celebrate Christmas with Kentucky Fried Chicken,” the customer stated, per KFC’s account.
“A team member on the KFC Japan sales team overheard the remark and used it as inspiration to launch the first Christmas campaign and its tagline — Kentucky for Christmas.”
Marks Annual Promotion
Additionally, according to KFC’s website, the first Christmas dinner offered in Japan was a bucket of fried chicken and a bottle of wine, with the suggestion that the meal be consumed during a holiday party.
The annual Christmas lunch promotions have grown since then. However, as restaurant lines on the actual holiday frequently spill onto city streets, many Japanese buy Christmas meals from KFC months in advance.
Shared Research shows KFC Japan made roughly 7.1 billion yen ($53 million in today’s currency) in revenue in 2019.
Even though just 1% of Japanese are Christians, many individuals have embraced the commercial side of Christmas. Ishii claimed that the Japanese people’s want fueled the popularity of Kentucky for Christmas to incorporate foreign holidays into their culture…Read more
Source: Voyage New York
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