April Fools Day is a long-standing tradition in the United States, but only recently has come to Japan. In Japanese, April Fools’s Day is called 4月馬鹿 (Shigatsu Baka or, literally, April Fool) or エイプリルフール (Eipuriru Fuuru or April Fool), or also エープリルフール (Eepuriru Fuuru). Japan has quickly joined the fun, however, and this year all sorts of companies had their own April Fool’s pranks. Coca-Cola introduced coke bottles as business cards, Volvo introduced smartphone airbags, Taito promoted a hot-springs arcade, and Audi even released a concept car with its own rice cooker and tatami-mat seats for the busy executive who still wants a traditional Japanese meal. Kirin created a smart beer mug and Red Bull created an ad for red-eye drops.
However, this year, Burger King Japan’s big news was no joke: on April 1, you had your chance to buy a limited-edition “Flame Grilled” Burger King fragrance, with the distinctive odor of a Whopper Sandwich. At a cost of 5,000 Yen (about $41 USD), you could get your own bottle, along with a complimentary Whopper. The fragrance went on sale at 10:30 a.m. in Burger King restaurants all over Japan.
If you are madly clicking on a travel website to get tickets to Japan A.S.A.P., give it up: the fragrance sold out in the first day, which also happens to be “Whopper Day,” according to Burger King Japan. Still, for the disappointed, Burger King Japan is still selling a "Whopper Pass," which is the same price (5,000 Yen) for thirty days of Whopper meal deals, which are priced at 840 yen (US$6.93) each.
What does the perfume smell like? Sam Byford of “The Verge” found that it evoked the smell of cigars, describing it as "something like the burnt-rubber skidmarks left by a box-fresh-MacBook-carrying courier scooter after it crashed into a bacon salt factory."
Sources:
Forbes
The Verge
Kotaku