Some 1,000 "customers" who lined up for the release of McDonald's new hamburger in Japan were actually hired in advance, it was learned.
Around 1,000 people were paid to join the queue outside the Midosuji-Suomachi branch of McDonald’s for the release of their Quarter Pounder burger
About 15,000 people flocked to McDonald's Japan's Midosuji Suomachi store in Chuo-ku, Osaka, on Tuesday, to buy the new "Quarter Pounder with Cheese," which was released for the first time in the Kansai region. McDonald's Japan announced on Wednesday that the store has set record sales of about 10.2 million yen on the day.
On Thursday, however, it turned out that 1,000 of the customers in the long line were part-time workers that McDonald's Japan requested a marketing company supply, including the first 20 to 30 people who waited from midnight.
"We didn't ask the company to make the people line up. We didn't intentionally do it," a spokesperson for McDonald's Japan explains.
McDonald's Japan previously asked the marketing company to conduct research on the hamburger, and the marketing company requested staffing company Fullcast Co. to hire part-time workers. Fullcast recruited part-time workers on the Internet, describing the job with an hourly pay of 1,000 yen near Shinsaibashi Station as "Easy work, just waiting in line to buy a new product and eating it." The staffing company conducted a questionnaire regarding the hamburger -- including its taste and the service at the store -- among 1,000 part-time workers and collected answers from 300 respondents. The part-time workers were also given money for the hamburgers.
McDonald's Japan has said that it won't correct the store's sales figures even though it included the amount that the part-timers paid for the burgers.
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