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Is Burger King Japan sending subliminal messages in its packaging for the new “Top” One Pounder?

SoraNews24 Dec 12, 2024
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Lucky New Year burger comes with a questionable “Big Inside” bag that looks like something is being inserted…

In recent years, Burger King Japan has been filling a gap in the fast food market for big burgers with “The One Pounder” series, which packs four beef patties inside a sesame seed-topped bun. In this year alone, the chain has released four varieties that customers have gone wild for, with the Great King Yeti in February, Ugly in April, Big Barbeque in July and Ninniku Garlic in October.

Now, Burger King is giving us one final One Pounder for the year and it’s called 24/25 TOP.

As the name suggests, this burger pays homage to the turn of the year, which is the biggest event on the Japanese festival calendar. It’s a time when people gather with families and take part in special customs that include eating osechi, a traditional meal filled with auspicious ingredients designed to bring luck in the coming year.

The 24/25 TOP takes this custom and runs with it, packing its own variety of auspicious ingredients into the burger to deliver luck to the eater.

Up top, we have a toasted sesame seed bun, followed by fresh tomato and onion, special spicy sauce, a five-cheese sauce, pickles, and four flame-grilled beef patties. This combination of ingredients results in a burger that contains a lot of red and white colours, which are commonly seen in Japan around New Year as it’s considered to be an auspicious pairing.

To commemorate the release, customers who purchase the 24/25 TOP will receive a special paper bag containing an original sticker and a coupon that gets you a 300-yen (US$1.98) discount on a Whopper set of your choice. The bag, decked out in lucky red-and-white hues, has a design that’s rather questionable, and things get even more dubious when you realise it’s a stylised rendering of the Japanese kanji “大入”, which translates as “Big Inside“.

▼ The whole set brings new meaning to the “I did it” sticker in the package.

What’s immediately visible on the bag is two tumescent characters with round, ball-and-bellend-like appendages at the end of their strokes. Though the chain says this rendering of “Big Inside” is in reference to “めでたい大入” (“medetai ooiri”), which means “lots of luck inside”, we have to wonder when it comes to Burger King. After all, this is the chain that made news around the world for hiding messages in its promotional posters on more than one occasion, and the attention it brought them has no doubt given them a taste of the power of hidden marketing.

Whether intentional or not, the bag is sure to raise eyebrows when the new 24/25 TOP is released on 13 December, priced at 2,090 yen. Stocks of the “Big Inside” bags are limited, though, so if you’re a top, or a bottom, or neither, or both, you’ll want to get in quick to snag them while supplies last, with distribution set to end on 2 January.

Source, images: Press release
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