Just about every major convenience store chain in Japan offers their own fried chicken product. Much like hot dogs at many American convenience store, these unhealthy treats are sold right at the front counter where they are kept warm and ready to be eaten at a moment’s notice. In the case of the Japanese convenience store chain Lawson, their fried chicken product is called the “L Chiki.” “Chiki” is derived from the English word “chicken” and “L” is a reference to both the product’s “large” size and the first letter of the convenience store’s name. In late June Lawson revamped their deep fried snack by making it bigger and as is often the case with companies nowadays, they are using social media to promote this change via a rather amusing contest.
The contest, which is very simply called the “L Chiki Pose Contest,” began on June 27 and requires people to tweet out either a picture or video of themselves doing the “L Chiki pose,” which is simply when you make a capital “L” out of your index finger and thumb. Entries must be posted to Twitter by July 26 and hashtagged ＃チキポーズ (#chikipoozu).
Although any still picture in which you are doing the L Chiki pose is acceptable, in their promotional material, such as the commercial below advertising the release of the new L Chiki, Lawson places particular emphasis on contestants doing an “L Chiki pose dance.”
By the way, make sure to pay attention to the “L Chiki song” playing in the background. It’s… quite memorable.
Earlier this week, (Jul 14) Lawson released a couple of videos promoting this contest to their official YouTube channel. These videos feature an actual Lawson employee (described as being good-looking on the Lawson website) doing some L Chiki posing.
In the first of these videos the Lawson hottie does some L Chiki pose dancing to the tune of that mind-numbingly repetitive L Chiki song.
In the second video, the Lawson guy shows the world all the different things you can do with the L Chiki pose. You can, for example, adjust your glasses.
Operate your smartphone.
Read a book.
And so much more! See what else you can do with the L Chiki pose by watching the video below. Just brace yourself because they use that song again. By the way, although it may sound like it, the lyrics are not saying “erotic.” However, now that you read that, you’re probably going to start hearing it..
Of course, plenty of people have been tweeting out their L Chiki pose videos and pictures over the past couple of weeks. Here’s just a small sample of a few. If you want to see more, you’ll want to go here.
Lチキが好きすぎてLチキダンス！！（笑）🍗
1度流れたら頭から離れない曲できいちゃんと遊んでみたよ🤣
❤みんなも真似してみてね（笑）#ローソン #Lチキポーズ #PR pic.twitter.com/oq2GuY1n4P— RUI🐛 (@ruuuuuui36) July 1, 2017
L Chiki vs. an L size mouth
Lチキが1.4倍になったからワンバイトしてみた。#Lチキポーズ pic.twitter.com/VSGPYwZP2G— みっくす (@04mix04) June 28, 2017
Here’s a Japanese schoolgirl version.
— 中森琴音 (@nakamorikotone) June 27, 2017
As for the prize, well, the winner gets a year’s supply of L Chiki. Obviously Lawson can’t just give the winner a huge box with hundreds of pieces of fried chicken so the prize actually takes the form of a gift card worth 55,000 JPY (489 USD), which would be the equivalent of 365 L Chikis (they cost 150 JPY each). Unfortunately, if you’re outside of Japan, you won’t be able to enter but hey, at least you have that trance-inducing L Chiki song to make you forget all your worries.
Source: Lawson, Lawson
Top Image: 【ローソン】“Lチキポーズ”コンテスト実施中！（現役ローソン社員）【ダンス編】 (Lawson Official YouTube Channel)
Main text images: 【ローソン】“Lチキポーズ”コンテスト実施中！（現役ローソン社員）【応用編】 (Lawson Official YouTube Channel)
