Earlier this week, we reported an outlandish story about McDonald’s in China working on a ‘5G’ product scheduled to release on April 15. And now, it turns out, that it wasn’t a 5G product at all, but rather… just some fried chicken.
I mean, I figured they weren’t going to announce a smartphone, or tablet, but at the very least, I thought they were adding in a new 5G smart terminal. Or something like that.
The teasers were very stylised to mimic those of smartphone announcements, or a new tablet. They mentioned facial recognition, ultra wide cameras, and ‘5G’ capabilities. I mean, look at these teasers and tell me you wouldn’t believe they were releasing a smartphone. This is literally how every other smartphone or tech conference teases their products.
Mcdonalds China hosted a 5G product conference yesterday.
But it turns out 5G was just a play on words. Ji (which sounds like G) means Chicken in Mandarin.
They pitched it like a smartphone / tech conference reveal but it was actually just for McCrispy Chicken.
Thread below https://t.co/2Y6xQIjLfM
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) April 16, 2020
Turns out, when April 15 came along, McDonald’s China revealed their new ‘5G device’ to be: McCrispy Chicken. The whole marketing strategy was based on the fact that in Mandarin, ‘Ji’ which sounds like G, means chicken. It was literally all just a play on words. The ‘5’ aspect in the ‘5G’ product from McDonald’s, turned out to be their five ‘chicken technologies’: taste, freshness, juiciness, crispy texture, and multiple sizes (breast, leg, wing, etc). Guess April Fool’s came late for McDonald’s this year.
Okay you know what, fair play McDonald’s, you had me fooled. Now I’m too jaded to even eat your fried chicken, how about that???