It’s common for U.S. companies doing business in Japan to make use of their American-ness as a marketing tool, and businesses like Jack Daniels, KFC, L.L. Bean and Coleman are very good at accessing the iconic imagery of America to make their products appealing to Japanese consumers. So is McDonald’s, which has brought back its Big America Texas Burger, an actual product despite sounding like a parody you might read in The Onion. I did my duty as a Japan blogger and had one for lunch the other day, and it was quite good as far as semi-synthetic pseudo-food goes, basically a Quarter Pounder on a custom bun with chilli, onions and bacon. The TV commercial is as cheesy as the burger concept (if you’ll excuse the pun), with rugged cowboy-types eating the burger with the Footloose theme playing in the background. After the Texas Burger promotion ends, McDonald’s will sell the Manhattan Burger, the Miami Burger and the Idaho Burger, the last of which will presumably involve potatoes in some way.
Did someone say Miku-donald’s?
