Back on December 23rd 2008, McDonald’s Japan released a brand new burger called the Quarter Pounder. This was McDonald’s first attempt to create a true burger. It had two and a half times more meat than its other more petite McBurgers. By the time they started selling the Quarter Pounders at 10 o’clock in the morning, thousands of people were lined up outside, eager to be knocked out by the extra juicy heavyweight. On that day McDonald’s recorded its highest single day sales in its history. So what was McDonald’s victory secret?
Turns out it was Sakura.
How could small pink flowers contribute to McDonald’s burger sales? In Japan, Sakura has a hidden identity. The term Sakura is used to describe claques (hired sycophants). Typically, claques are employed by companies who want to promote products and boost their sales. Sakura (the people) pretend to be customers who praise and buy the products that they have been hired to promote.
There are several theories of how Sakura came to describe a claque, but the following explanation is the most common.
In the Edo era, playhouses would hire spectators who would cheer and clap for particular actors. They were showy and ostentatious but disappeared in a blink of an eye, much like Sakura blossoms. Thus, people started calling the claques “Sakura”. Interestingly, Sakura typically blossoms in large groups, making it extremely hard to distinguish one blossom from the other. From a distance, it’s just a big splash of pink. So a good Sakura (meaning claque this time) is the one who can blend in and disappear within a crowd.
A few days after the Quarter Pounder’s release, several news outlets (Asahi, Sankei, etc.) reported about the McDonald’s Sakura incident. According to these reports, McDonald’s enlisted the services of a marketing firm, FULLCAST HOLDINGS CO., LTD., who hired roughly a thousand people to “check out” the Quarter Pounder. Though McDonald’s admitted that around 220 people who were waiting in line on that sensational morning were hired as part-timers, they claim that their intention was to monitor the quality of the burger and customer service, not to promote sales. Part-timers were paid 1,000 yen (equivalent to $10) per hour and received additional big-burger vouchers.
As the spring winds toss up a handful of pink petals, we can see that even our beloved cherry blossoms have more than one side. It appears that the sweet pink allure might just be a cover. See you can spot some Sakura in your neck of the woods.
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