Seriously about usually showing white people in commercials? That's not what I see here, and I live in China right now. McDonald's and KFC, the two foreign fast food leaders, seem to have done a fairly good job localizing. Heck, I can't get any apple pies here, only pineapple and taro. And they serve chicken wings at McDonald's. Chicken wings! :) KFC goes one further, currently marketing a new Chinese BBQ pork set meal with rice and veggies.

Ha. Yep. And in Thailand they serve broccoli pies[1] and corn pies. Weird! :)

[1] http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/228089_101002...

This reminds me of a post I wrote a while back about McDonalds in Kuala Lumpur. 2 of their main combos were KFC style chicken.

http://troysimpson.co/branding-why-i-ate-mcdonalds-in-kuala-...

The McDonalds v. Subway battle is exactly the reason why Subway needs a clever name. With McDonalds and KFC dominating the Chinese fast food market, Subway needs a point of differentiation. Fortunately, both of the leaders had chosen mediocre names, which gives Subway a slight advantage.

You say McD is more popular in Asia than Subway.

Please bear in mind that Asia is larger than just China.

The "worse name" you mention here is only relevant to China and has no relevance to the rest of the Asian market.

I said it specifically to include other countries than China.

I was living in Taiwan for a while, which uses the same Mandarin name for McD.

And in other asian countries McD is far more popular than Subway.