Quarter Pounder, McDonald's No-Brand Burger Japanese Joint

Posted by Adam Kuban, November 11, 2008 at 2:30 PM

We just got this succinct email from Paul Petrunia: "McDonald's opens up no-brand 'Quarter Pounder' joint in Japan."

What's on the menu? Duh!

Anti-branding as a concept isn't new to the Japanese. The successful Muji stores there are based on the idea of "no brand" and in fact Wikipedia says the store's name is "derived from the first part of Mujirushi Ryōhin, translated as "No Brand Quality Goods."

This looks like a pretty cool location and a neat no-branding of a familiar product. It would be even cooler applied to a real hamburger joint serving real quarter-pound hamburgers.

2 Comments

Tags: chain burgers, design, Japan, McDonald's

2 Comments:

And they taste just like they did in Australia .... i've been to both stores. Quarter Pounder In Japan

fz22gq at 8:52PM on 11/12/08

This is so weird, especially since I was just reading about McDonald's on Dr. Tantillo's marketing blog, where he praises McD for being so flexible and adapting to demand but prefaced this with: "The big things about McDonald’s cosmetic image (i.e., colors, designs, clown mascot) have never essentially changed. Neither has the basic serving and restaurant setup."
Guess they are even more flexible though... Tantillo's full post

Even though this is supposed to just be temporary/buzz marketing, I wonder if cultivating this sort of aesthetic wouldn't make sense for them--a move to diversify their holdings (they own a significant portion of Chipotle, or did last I knew) and expand/diversify their customer base (Ex. their 'unsnobby coffee' campaign. Tantillo did a post on
Starbucks/Dunkin' Donuts mentioning McDonald's coffee, too.

sloane8 at 10:37PM on 11/19/08

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