If you have never seen this 1981 documentary on KFC in Japan, then it's well worth half an hour of your time, either as an insight into foreign firms trying to crack Japan, or just as a glimpse of the past. /1

One of the nice touches is seeing the Japan manager of Church's Chickens talking up his own firm, and badmouthing KFC, which we can watch in the knowledge that Church's has virtually disappeared without trace. /2

You also get a look at a young Takeshi "Shin" Okawara, who left a safe job at Dainippon Printing to join KFC as it started up in Japan. He was already COO in 1981, and became CEO three years after this film was made. /3

If you don't recall Takeshi Okawara, then he made an appearance in this thread, for his major contribution to Japanese Christmas culture: https://twitter.com/Mulboyne/status/943037106904952832

I also learned from that video that Golden Skillet had been in Japan too. That branch was in Shibuya, if the caption to the black and white shot is to be believed. /5

For me, it's fascinating to see Loy Weston in the flesh. If someone conducted business today the way he did them, it might put them in a cell next to Carlos Ghosn. Then again, Weston generally kept his staff loyal. /6

I'm not sure how the opening moments of the documentary, with Weston bellowing out "Kentucky Fried Chicken, Banzai!", haven't already become a meme. /7

I've mentioned before that it's tempting sometimes to see the success of McDonald's and KFC in Japan as assured from the start. They became such fixtures, it's hard to think the Japanese consumer might have rejected them. Yet many chains did fail. /8 https://twitter.com/Mulboyne/status/787837183876960256

Always seems to me that KFC hit paydirt with Weston, because he had the rare gift of being a credible figure to his US bosses as well as his Japanese partners and staff. Many executives of foreign businesses in Japan get only one side right, sowing mistrust with the other. /9

There is so much going on in the introductory paragraph to this 1984 interview with Weston. /10 https://www.jef.or.jp/journal/pdf/fb_8407.pdf

In that article, Weston lamented the "short-termism" of US firms who would enter the Japanese market, only to swiftly exit. You can still find foreign restaurants and retailers guilty of that behaviour today. /11 ( @JapanIntercult)

Almost anyone who has tried to mediate Japanese and overseas interests will know what Weston means here. Just to remind you that he was still chairman of KFC when he was making statements like this. /12

And another statement he made later. /13

When I made the reference to Carlos Ghosn earlier, it's not because of scuttlebutt about Weston, it's all from what the man himself says. In 2004, the Hawaiian Reporter started serializing his autobiography, and I read it online. /14

It soon disappeared from the web, but the Internet Archive is a great resource. If the video whet your appetite, then you could do worse than read through twelve chapters of Loy Weston's story: https://web.archive.org/web/20050308131204/http://www.hawaiireporter.com/list.aspx?An+American+Entreprenuer+in+Asia+

We make jokes about fax machines today, but the only way to get messages from overseas when Weston started was by telex. /16

(N.B. The link I gave for the Internet Archive doesn't seem to work. Try putting in " http://www.hawaiireporter.com/list.aspx?An+American+Entreprenuer+in+Asia+" and searching for results around 2005.) /17

Weston realised from the start that effective PR was a cheap way to raise his company's profile. /18

Remember this gentleman? Weston credit's Kyoichi Egashira for one of KFC's big breaks. /19 https://twitter.com/Mulboyne/status/942912231104061440

The Osaka Expo is widely regarded as key to the success of KFC in Japan but there was nothing pre-ordained about the chain getting a chance to appear. /20

Anyone remember the name Howard Johnson? At one time they were the biggest restaurant chain in the US, with a well-known motel brand. They were at the Expo too, but got cold feet about entering Japan. They had a terrible record of international expansion. http://www.highwayhost.org/Stategateways/international.html

Here Loy Weston says he told Mitsubishi that he would judge franchise proposals from Korea based on whether applicants could introduce him to attractive women. /22

He was introduced to a girl called Asia at a hostess club, who joined him back in his room. /23

Here's Weston explaining how he mobilized company resources to get his girlfriend out of Korea. /24

Here, Weston explains how he enlisted Dewi Sukarno to help him look after the girl in France.

The Carlos Ghosn saga would be a lot more interesting if that was the kind of episode we were dealing with. Here is Weston's explanation for including a story which, even at the time he was writing it, his friends thought he shouldn't. /26

In the video, Weston mentions how the first KFC outlets in Japan matched the layout of stores in the US but were abject failures. He explained more here. /27

You can understand why Weston's friends thought he shouldn't write about the way his personal and business lives were heavily entwined. They wanted everyone to appreciate, without prejudice, that he really knew a lot about doing business in Japan.

As far as I know, Weston's opinions on foreign firms doing business in Japan, are only available online if you know where to search the internet archive. That seems a shame. Even if you don't particularly care for the man, he makes a lot of good points. /29

Then again, forging the signature of the president of your parent company to secure finance, is probably not best practice. /30

It's fun tracking down some of Weston's throwaway comments. Carole Sneen did indeed grow up in Japan, and there's a picture of her with her husband Soichiro Yoshida, at a Hilton anniversary party in 1983. /31

Carole Yoshida moved a longed way from handing out free KFC for Loy Weston. She worked with Soichiro on the Nagano Olympics campaign, and Carole also liaised with Sydney 2000. Soichiro is an honorary consul for several European countries in Nagano. /32

Can't get enough of this.