Hasta La Gadget!

McDonalds seems to have much more creative leeway in Japan than elsewhere, perhaps due to the comfort level consumers have with marketing campaigns. The Quarter Pounder Shop is a great example…what would be seen as a cynical marketing ploy by many in the U.S. gets great press as an innovative new concept in Japan.

The Quarter Pounder campaign has evolved into another pop-up shop concept for a very limited time. The Bara-Iro (rose color) T-Shirt shop is a pop-up shop within a McDonalds, lasting only from June 11-16.

The Shibuya Center-Gai McDonalds has completely remodeled its second-floor eating area into a super-pink, t-shirt-selling wonderland. Customers who order Quarter Pounders receive metal “bara-iro” pins, but those who are a bit more bold can venture into the Bara-Iro T-Shirt Shop to purchase one of fifty different designs, all printed on rose-colored shirts.

Each shirt costs about $10 and is quite limited, as can be seen below. When we visited yesterday nearly half of the shirts were all gone already, and with a surprisingly large number of customers inside.

As mentioned previously, this seems like the type of campaign that wouldn’t get nearly the same reception in a major U.S. city. The cool factor would only arise twenty years later when hipsters started wearing them ironically, and by then it’s a bit late.

UPDATE: Our pal Andrew Shuttleworth snagged some video from another McDonalds t-shirt campaign in April, this time giving out free “Love & Beer” shirts (?).