McDonald's in China is considered luxury food?

McDonald's beef is luxurious. Beef is healthy. And, yes, beef is sexy.

These are the new messages McDonald's Corp. is sending Chinese consumers as it tries to seduce them into eating more hamburgers. One racy billboard ad features a close-up of a women's lips; on another ad on the door of restaurants, a woman runs her hand over a man's flexed biceps. "Flirt with your senses," signs say.
The campaign -- supporting the introduction in China of the Quarter Pounder -- is part of a shift in strategy for McDonald's. The company recently started focusing less on selling menu items created especially to appeal to local Chinese markets and more on pushing traditional American hamburgers.

When McDonald's introduced the Quarter Pounder here earlier this month, it nixed an Asian-style triangle-shaped wrapper filled with beef or chicken and rice and decided against rolling out a "rice burger" in China. Still, the Chinese Quarter Pounder isn't identical to its U.S. counterpart: It has cucumbers instead of pickles and tomatoes and a spicy sauce appealing to the Chinese palate -- all the result of tests of more than 16 variations on consumers.

Beef, grown domestically, costs more than other meats in China, and consumers here consider it a luxury good. McDonald's is playing on its upscale image, as well as on traditional Chinese views that eating beef boosts energy and heightens sex appeal. The word "beef" in Chinese has connotations of manliness, strength and skill.

The burger chain's TV commercials are even racier than the print ads. In one spot, a man and a woman eat Quarter Pounders, and close-up shots of the woman's neck and mouth are interspersed with images of fireworks and spraying water. The actors suck their fingers. The voice-over says: "You can feel it. Thicker. You can taste it. Juicier." Article here.