What’s all the buzz about? Jollibee, diaspora marketing, and next-stage fast food globalization

Abstract

Over the past two decades, the Philippines’ leading restaurant brand, Jollibee, has made significant inroads into America’s quick-service dining scene. While previous scholarship has charted the chain’s phenomenal rise domestically, few accounts detail the company’s growing international standing much less discuss its ongoing expansion into major American cities beginning in the late 1990s. In this article, I examine Jollibee’s continuing spread outside of the Philippines, chronicling its efforts to establish a viable U.S. market presence whether by launching eponymous outlets at the local level or purchasing partial or majority interest in quick-service restaurant brands already operating stateside. The direct influx of foreign capital from these overseas operators to secure full or majority ownership of some of America’s most enduring and emergent quick-service eateries plays an equally transformative if more inconspicuous role than opening their own U.S. outlets in what I term “next-stage fast food globalization.” Fieldwork at two Jollibee locations—one in the Philippines and the other in the United States—provides comparative dimension and granularity to this food studies analysis. Relevant concepts from contemporary media studies (flows and contra-flows) and international marketing (diaspora marketing) help situate research findings within a broader theoretical framework.