英语论文网

IAN BRAILSFORD
American fast-foods chains have operated successfully in New Zealand forover three decades. Their ubiquity means that it sounds like a contradictionin terms to label Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), with its headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, Pizza Hut (born in Wichita, Kansas), and McDonald's(with its Hamburger University outside Chicago) as either ‘ethnic' orforeign food.2 This article examines how demonstrably foreign imports - franchised fast-food outlets - reconciled their American origins in a newterritory. This issue was addressed by McDonald's national managingdirector, Gary Lloydd, when interviewed by Management magazine in October 1985. Looking back at the chain's first decade of operations in NewZealand, he recalled that attempts were made by McDonald's in the earlyyears to customise its operations to meet local circumstances. On reflection,however, Lloydd believed that the American model worked best. He toldthe publication: ‘There's a tendency to New Zealandise McDonald's, to sayNew Zealanders won't like this or that. But in fact it's much simpler toMcDonaldise New Zealand.'3 By the end of the 1980s McDonald'slaunched - with great fanfare - the ‘Kiwiburger', associating it withstereotypical New Zealand icons (the All Blacks, jandals, chilly bins, andwoolly sheep etc.) in print and television commercials.4 Drawing fromLloydd's comments and the Kiwiburger can we surmise that the fast-food chains Americanised New Zealand or that, alternatively, Americana hasbeen ‘New Zealandised'? What follows is an investigation of the roleadvertising played during the 1970s and 1980s in making fast food such an integral part of New Zealand ‘tucker' that its American origins are almostinvisible today.5 In doing so, we can gain a better understanding of whatAmerica signified to New Zealanders.
The unassuming Auckland suburb of Royal Oak was the starting point forthis revolution in New Zealand's eating habits and business practices. OnFriday 20 August 1971, New Zealand's pioneering American fast-food
chain was launched when KFC officially opened its first branch at theManukau Road exit from the Royal Oak roundabout. Full-pageadvertisements in the Auckland Star promoted the store's opening with alarge photograph of the company's founder, Colonel Harland B. Sanders,and promises of free balloons for children and live music from the Southern Bend Blue Grass Band.6 In the space of twelve months, three more KFCsopened in the Auckland region: Panmure, Takapuna and Papatoetoe. InSeptember 1974, the same businessman who had managed KFC for its firstthree years in New Zealand led a consortium which launched the Pizza Hut AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES 11restaurant chain in New Lynn, another Auckland suburb. With a nice touchof historical irony, McDonald's, America's fast-food exemplar, opened itsdoors in Porirua, a working-class suburb 20 kilometres north of Wellington,on the Queen's birthday anniversary weekend in early June 1976.
From these small beginnings New Zealand