International confusion

[seeingred]

The mainstream press here have picked up on the online kerfuffle over KFC's cricket ad, which they've now withdrawn from TV. It must have boggled American minds: what critics see is a white guy, nervous to be surrounded by black people, placating them with fried chicken

Comments

[hnpcc]

I'm troubled by that, and by the idea that ad-makers the world over ought to check that their work doesn't offend Americans.

I started wondering about this after the outcry over the Japanese phone company ad during the 2008 presidential election campaign. On the one hand, I understood what the protesters were reacting to - on the other why would those necessarily be the same symbols to the Japanese? On the third, invisible hand I still don't know enough to know whether they are the same, although given that the phone company executives mentioned that their mascot was a monkey because it was a good luck symbol possibly not.

[purrdence]

What was the ad about?

Also, the monkey is one of the 12 Zodiac in Japanese culture.

[hnpcc]

Link to ad and discussions here:

http://www.wikio.com/video/290482

Short version: a monkey dressed in a suit making a presidential-like campaign speech about mobile phones while crowds cheer and hold signs saying "Change!" in both English and (I presume it's the same word) Japanese.

Again, I can see why Americans got offended and what they were seeing, but I'm still not sure whether the monkey=black person stereotype is present in Japan, or whether they just took their company mascot and the zeitgeist of the time in a similar way that the Jeep ads did and made a seriously unfortunate (from an American perspective at least) gaffe.

[purrdence]

Oh.. E-Mobile. I remember seeing these types of ads in Japan.

Unless I've missed something, the monkey=black person stereotype does not exist Japan. It's more like black person=woohoo! really exotic gaijin! stereotype Which, when you think about it, is similar to how some black men are seen in some western societies.

Most of the other signs are the E-Mobile logo or something about E-Mobile in Japanese.

[hnpcc]

black person=woohoo! really exotic gaijin! stereotype Which, when you think about it, is similar to how some black men are seen in some western societies.

True. I remember reading an article by an African-American backpacker who lived in Poland for a while. She was offered a job as a DJ solely because she was "cool and funky" - because she was African-American, and therefore inherently so.

Actually that also reminds me of the sketch on 'black men in Australian ads' on... oh God, one of the satirical shows in the late 80s/early 90s. Possibly even mid-90s. Black men are cool and funky... unless they're aboriginal, in which case they send the entirely wrong message. It was interesting, and not something I'd really clued into before.

Thanks for the translation of the signs in the Emobile ad btw!

[kateorman]

I hadn't heard about that one! Now there's an interesting difference here with the KFC ad, which is full of Australian things not necessarily intelligible to Americans; by contrast, the Japanese ad is specifically imitating something American. It would've made a lot of sense for the company to run it past a few Americans for a safety check!

[hnpcc]

But whether running the ad past Americans when it was screening only in Japan and was intended solely for a Japanese audience would have occurred to anyone is another thing altogether. Especially if you weren't aware of potential buttons!

[kateorman]

Well, this is the thing - if you're using images or icons from another country, it makes sense to check them first. The KFC ad isn't borrowing from overseas in that way. (Although, hang about - I wonder if they ran the ad past any West Indians!)