McDonald's Japan is giving away an actual gold nugget and fries

McDonald's is lending a rather literal sheen to the term "golden fries" in Japan. 

To kick off summer, it's started two marketing promos offering an 18K gold nugget and a pack of gold fries to two lucky winners.

For the nugget, a new character called Kaito Nuggets (怪盗ナゲッツ) will be running around Japan and making surprise appearances in public, McDonald's said in a press release. This could see him throwing out the first pitch at a baseball game, or popping into McDonald's outlets around the country.

McDonald's will scatter clues of his whereabouts on Twitter, and hopeful winners of the Willy Wonka nugget have to tweet photos of Kaito Nuggets and hashtag his name with the post.

The nugget weighs 50g (1.8 ounces), which makes it worth a reported $1,500, but since it's the only one of its kind, you can expect the price to escalate once the winner Instagrams his loot.

The campaign, which will end on Jun. 28, is aimed at promoting two new nugget dipping sauces -- "creamy cheddar cheese" and "fruits curry sauce."

Fries on the side

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

But what's a gold nugget without a pack of fries to go with? In a separate campaign that ends on Tuesday, McDonald's dangled a pack of gold fries to the winner of a photo hunt competition.

However, McDonald's notes in its fineprint that it's giving away just one solid 18K gold fry weighing 50g -- the other fries in the pack are "painted gold."

To join, users had to download its new app, where there's a camera function that overlays a red fry packet over the shot. Find something yellow and stringy to resemble fries, and line it up so it looks like a pack of fries before you tweet the shot with the hashtag #ポテ撮り (potetori -- which means potato picture-taking).

That campaign whichstarted two weeks ago, attracted lots of submissions on Twitter.

Here are a few creative entries:

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