McDonald's forced to change Happy Meal rules following controversy
McDonald's has had to change the rules around one of its most iconic products after a limited offer sparked chaos.
The Happy Meal has become one of the biggest products for McDonald's, with the colourful packaging and mystery toy bringing back memories for generations of people.
But even the most successful products can run into problems, as McDonald's found when it ran a limited time Happy Meal offer in Japan which partnered with Pokémon.
The Happy Meals included a mystery toy, this time Pokémon-themed, but the promise of one figurative 'golden ticket' in a Happy Meal sent people into a frenzy.
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As a result, McDonald's was forced to change the rules around its Happy Meal.
The limited time offer was meant to run from 9 to 11 August, but overwhelming demand meant it lasted just a single day.
It all came down to the tantalising promise that each meal would contain a Pokémon card - and one was guaranteed to be Pikachu.
Anyone who has ever collected Pokémon card knows that rare cards can command an extremely high price.
The very rarest specimens have been known to sell to collectors for tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Factors such as a card being of a limited run, or being used in a one-off promotional campaign, for example, add to a card's collectability.
So it's perhaps not a surprise that fans went wild for the deal, flooding restaurants with orders and even getting into fights with each other over the coveted card.
Some customers bought multiple Happy Meals so they could resell them at an inflated value, and all the while the intended audience - children - missed out.
Such was the level of chaos that McDonald's Japan issued a formal apology, before changing the rules around Happy Meals in an effort to avoid a repeat of the Pokemon pandemonium.
Now customers can purchase just three Happy Meals per group in a single transaction, while people are also prohibited from requesting specific toys or making exchanges for different products.
McDonald's also issued a statement slamming customers who had bought the meals for resale and in doing so wasted food.
It said: "McDonald's does not tolerate the purchase of Happy Set for the purpose of resale, nor the wasting or disposal of food. This incident clearly goes against our long-standing philosophy of providing a fun dining experience for children and families, as well as our values as a restaurant. We sincerely acknowledge that our response was inadequate."
The company also introduced 'rules and etiquette', which included that the promotional meals would only be for sale in Drive-Thrus and in restaurants, not online.
Kit Roberts