Iconic Christmas Foods
For those in the United States, thoughts of Christmas foods bring to mind the classics: pies, fruit cakes, figgy pudding, and a Christmas ham. In Japan, however, the iconic Christmas dishes are completely different. For example, think strawberry shortcake rather than fruit cake, and KFC fried chicken rather than ham. KFC as a Japanese Christmas tradition may seem odd, but it has such an interesting origin story.
Delving into the surprising chicken tradition, KFC has become a Japanese Christmas tradition nationwide for over 40 years. According to a report by the BBC, an estimated 3.6 million people eat KFC sometime during the Christmas season every single year. Understandably, this makes the Christmas season KFC’s busiest time of the year.
But why?
Let’s a take a look and see how the “finger lickin’ good” tradition came to be.
KFC comes to Japan
KFC first opened in Japan back in 1970 after Mitsubishi Corporation was given franchise rights to KFC in Japan. A test store was opened at the 1970 Osaka World Expo and was fairly successful. Later that year, the first real store was opened in Nagoya.
Unfortunately, KFC America used their standard western business practices and opened the following stores in suburban locations, which resulted in the stores failing due to lack of customers. After the failures, Mitsubishi suggested opening the next round of stores in the city. They understood that Japan had not yet adopted the practice of driving cars everywhere to the same degree in which America had. In 1972, an outlet was installed in Kobe which was very successful compared to the suburban stores. This paved the way for over 100 outlets to open by the end of 1973.
“Kentucky for Christmas”
KFC was not a Japanese Christmas tradition nationwide until the inception of a famous marketing promotion in 1974. “Kentucky for Christmas” or “Kurisumasu ni wa Kentakkii” was a campaign created by KFC Japan’s marketing department. Along with the tagline, KFC also promoted a new “party barrel” that was first created and sold in the original Nagoya store by the manager, Takeshi Okawara. Okawara would later become the CEO of KFC Japan.
The Story of Takeshi Okawara
In 1970, Takeshi Okawara was propositioned to become the manager of the first KFC in Nagoya when he visited the test store at the World’s fair in Osaka. He already had a job at Nippon Printing as a sales manager and was supposed to transfer to Germany for the company. After doing research on the KFC brand and Colonel Sanders, Okawara decided to take a risk, quit his job at Nippon Printing and became the first KFC store manager in Japan.
The podcast, Brought To You By… (formerly known as Household Name), spoke with Okawara back in 2018 where he explains how he came up with his idea for the “party barrel”. When the store first opened, it was not successful at all. Okawara describes that all the text in the store was in English and people did not even know what the store was selling. It was a hard first year of hardly selling any chicken, but things would turn around for the brand soon.
Later that year, he received a phone call from a nun at a local school. The school was having a Christmas party for the kids and they needed someone to put on the Santa Claus outfit. He agreed, as the school was also buying his chicken which he was desperate to sell. At the party, Okawara describes himself dancing in his Santa outfit with a bowl of chicken and singing a song he made up about “Kentucky Christmas”. Apparently the kids really enjoyed his performance. The party went well—so much so that another school heard about the party’s success and then asked Okawara to come to their school for their party too.
This gave Okawara the idea to try and sell his chicken as a Christmas food. Specifically, he angled it as a substitute to turkey, which the Japanese associate as a classic American food eaten during Christmas. To help bring in customers, he even dressed up his Colonel Sanders statues in Santa costumes.
Over time, this strategy of associating KFC with a stereotyped American Christmas worked. After a few years, Okawara was interviewed by the NHK (Japan’s national broadcasting organization). In the interview Okawara was asked if KFC for Christmas was a tradition in America. Owakara hesitantly replied yes, even though he knew it was not. It was a lie and he admitted that he regrets it, but he knew that if people thought it was something Americans or Europeans do, then the Japanese people would like it.
By the time 1974 rolled around, the “Kurisumasu ni wa Kentakkii” advertisement aired, and KFC saw how well the strategy of selling a “party barrel” and calling KFC a Christmas tradition worked. The proof of the campaign’s success was shown in Okawara’s store. The ad’s origin story as told by Takeshi Okawara is a very interesting one, but the more fascinating thing is that it is not the same version as KFC’s.
The KFC Version
According to the company Yum brands (the parent company of KFC), the story of how Okawara came up with the party barrel is a bit different. KFC denies that Okawara lied in his NHK interview, and the transcript is nowhere to be found. They say that foreigners had suggested that KFC sell chicken for Christmas as a substitute for the traditional turkey. But even this story has slightly different versions. For example, one says that Okawara actually overheard foreigners talking about how much they missed having their Christmas turkey. Later that night he had a dream where he comes up with the “party barrel” for Christmas. He wakes up in the middle of the night and jots it down before he forgets.
A Christmas Story Lost to Time, but not to Marketers
Whether or not Okawara’s version or KFC’s version of the story is correct, we may never know. It’s been almost 50 years since that time and it’s getting harder each year to confirm the real story. It may just end up as a Christmas fable that is told as truth, whether real or not.
Either way, the subtle genius of marketing KFC this way was not lost on many marketing experts. Many people have studied this campaign to try and see what lessons can be gleamed from this strategy and with good reason. KFC sells 10 times more during Christmas than what they do the entire rest of the year. With these kind of sales numbers, it seems likely that the Japanese tradition of KFC for Christmas is here stay.
